


I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore

by nevermindirah



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Cis Characters, Cunnilingus, Detailed content warnings in chapter notes, Developing Relationship, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit depictions of the emotional impacts of trauma, F/M, Heavy sociopolitical topics, Jewish Booker, Jewish Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Nile Freeman Marine Discourse, Nile Freeman-centric, Past Booker/Andy mentioned, Pervasive references to interpersonal and structural violence but no graphic depictions, Porn with Feelings, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Slow Burn, Trauma recovery through academic study of critical race theory and decolonial feminism, Vaginal Sex, brief Agents of SHIELD crossover, trans author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:49:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 65,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindirah/pseuds/nevermindirah
Summary: Nile Freeman woke up from death to find herself in a new world. New rules, new possibilities. New fears. And so much time, more time than she can evenimagine, let alone plan for. What does she want to do — who does she want to be?Turns out she's about to be living in the same city as another immortal considering the same questions as he rebuilds his life from the ashes of trauma and his own terrible decisions.Or, I just really need Booker to read Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and then go down on Nile, ok?
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman
Comments: 173
Kudos: 175





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One day I wondered: Am I just projecting, or is it legit for me to headcanon that Booker spends his exile reading critical race theory and decolonial feminist texts? Then I wrote [a long meta post about all the parallels between Nile and Booker's experiences dying in imperial wars their countries should never have started](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/629627160953552896/ive-been-drafting-and-redrafting-this-meta-post). And two months later, I launch into the world this my magnum opus. I've never written anything longer than 5k words before. _Where did my brain go I swear I left it around here somewhere—_
> 
> Content warnings: This fic is full of Ideas and Issues and references a variety of things that might be triggering. I'll include specific content warnings in the beginning notes for each chapter.
> 
> The Explicit rating is for several explicit sex scenes. It's all pretty vanilla porn with feelings, all between Nile and Booker, full of enthusiastic consent and orgasms and characterization. The porn does not start in chapter 1.
> 
> Emotional trauma is a main theme of the fic, stemming from grief, rejection by loved ones, and other interpersonal shit as well as systemic violence like war, genocide, early modern chattel slavery, present-day human trafficking, forced migration, family separation, poverty/hunger/homelessness, and climate change. Canon-typical violence happens frequently off-screen but is never graphically depicted.
> 
> There are references to characters consuming food and alcohol throughout. There are no graphic depictions of alcoholism.
> 
> Due to personal preference / squick avoidance (and because I didn't know about the Instagram character bio videos until part-way through writing this) I changed Booker's age. Changing, say, the ethnicity of a canon character of color would be really fucked up. Changing the age of a white Western European dude — ESPECIALLY when Booker got a birth date in his character bio video but fucking NILE DID NOT, WTF why did y'all give Booker a birth date month and year but Nile only a birth year????? — feels like fair game to me. Canonically Nile was 25 or 26 at her first death and Booker was 42 at his, so I knocked 6.5 years off his age for an age gap that wouldn't squick me out. In this fic, Nile is 25 at her first death and 26 when she starts dating Booker who's a 244-year-old who looks like a 36-year-old. I moved his birth date to 1776 because it means Nile loves two rat bastard baskets of white nonsense who were born in 1776, one of them loves her back and the other is the United States of America. (I'm just like my country I'm self-indulgent and have a terrible sense of humor.)
> 
> Nile's evolving beliefs and feelings about her Marine Corps service and the US military / the US in general are a main theme of the fic. Towards the beginning Nile sees the US military as a neutral or positive entity and the fic follows her as she starts to challenge and reject some of these ideas. I'm an American posting this in November 2020 and crossing my fingers tight that my country will not be more fascist by the time this finishes posting.
> 
> Chapter One content warnings:
> 
>   * Explicit discussion of the mechanics of the Old Guard's immortality. Explicit discussion of things like severed limbs and chronic illnesses.
>   * Graphic discussion of menstruation and abortion. A character is flippant about abortion. I'm a nonbinary person who menstruates, and my Nile is a cis woman who had individual trans people in her life pre-immortality and took recent US military trans inclusion training seriously — ie, I'm choosing to include in her characterization that she'd talk about menstruation in ways that won't trigger my dysphoria.
>   * Mention of death in childbirth. The death is not permanent and is mentioned but not described in any detail
>   * Mention of the Old Guard's involvement in the American Civil War and freeing slaves.
>   * References to Nile's US Marine Corps experience in a neutral-to-positive light. This is not the attitude of the author or the fic, but Nile begins this fic thinking of her military service as a positive contribution to the world.
> 

> 
> Now that these beginning notes are as long as some individual fics I've writen in the past, let's get this show on the train! (This is a play on "let's get this show on the road" that won't make sense until the last scene of the fic so is only funny to me. Self-indulgent, terrible sense of humor, and also I crave validation!)

You were lost and got lucky  
Came upon the shore  
Found you were conquering America  
You spoke of peace  
But waged a war  
While you were conquering America

There was land to take  
And people to kill  
While you were conquering America  
You served yourself  
Did God's will  
While you were conquering America

The ghost of Columbus haunts this world  
'Cause you're still conquering America  
The meek won't survive  
Or inherit the earth  
'Cause you're still conquering America

You found bodies to serve  
Submit and degrade  
While you were conquering America  
Made us soldiers and junkies  
Prisoners and slaves  
While you were conquering America

Your hands are at my throat  
My back's against the wall  
Because you're still conquering America  
We're sick and tired hungry and poor  
'Cause you're still conquering America

You bomb the very ground  
That feeds your own babies  
You're still conquering America  
Your sons and your daughters  
May never sing your praises  
While you're conquering America

I see you eyes seek a distant shore  
While you're conquering America  
Taking rockets to the moon  
Trying to find a new world  
And you're still conquering America

—Tracy Chapman, "America"

* * *

The four of them have been soaking up the morning sun through the windows of their safehouse living room for— huh, a few hours now. Breakfast is long finished and Nile and Joe are about to finish off a third pot of coffee.

Nile shifts in her seat on the couch beside Joe. This is probably as good a time as any to bring it up.

"Ok," she says after a deep breath. "So Andy's been team leader for like a thousand years and I'm new at this and I don't want to overstep. But it's not overstepping if y'all are on board, right? So what do you think about me taking point for a while. Give Andy some time to catch her bearings, add some twenty-first century strategy to all y'all's madness."

Joe and Nicky look at each other, unreadable to Nile but sentences and paragraphs to each other.

Nile looks down at her hands and starts to pick a little at her cuticles. Can the others tell she's nervous about this? Not nervous enough not to suggest it. Just nervous that they won't get what she means, that they don't see her that way.

She was proud of herself when she made Corporal but it didn't stop the fear needling at her. She knows who she is and what she's capable of, but does anybody else? She was still more than a year out from potentially re-upping her enlistment, but she couldn't keep it out of her head, wondering how long into going a full 20 years would she hit a brass ceiling. No guarantees whatever civilian career she might make for herself would be any better at seeing her for who she really is.

When she looks up from her fingernails, Nile finds Andy has a shit-eating grin on her face.

Andy's been smiling a lot more lately, seems to be taking more pleasure in the little things, grinning at babies and letting her eyes crinkle at the beauty of a sunrise. But this one is really something. "I knew I liked you," she says to Nile. Then, pointing to Joe and Nicky, "but you two are welcome to keep calling me boss."

Nicky ruffles Andy's hair at the same time as Joe bonks his head gently against Nile's. They're all laughing.

"You got a plan for us?" Joe asks after a minute. "I could spend months sitting right here on this couch teasing Andy over her nonexistent gray hairs, but I could do with figuring out what we do next."

Her stomach settles as Nile sees their easy confidence in her. Everything about her life is new, except for coffee and the feel of the sun on her skin and this right here, the feeling in her spine that she was built to lead a team. "I don't have a plan yet, but I've got a plan for how to come up with the plan," she says, and they all nod.

Andy sits back in her armchair like some of the world has shaken loose from her shoulders.

"In the meantime," Nile continues, "my dreams of Quỳnh keep changing. Her emotions are all over the place but she's eating and she's got shelter and she's getting her bearings. If her dreams of me work the same way, I think we can send her a message to come home when she's ready."

Nicky puts a steadying hand on Andy's knee. "Yes," he says, "this is a good plan."

Joe leans into Nile and murmurs, "Good job, New Boss."

* * *

"Good afternoon," Copley says over the video call. His face is impassive but Nile knows what he's doing. She's not going to take the bait.

"Hello to you too, and nice try," Nile says. "How are you doing?"

"I'm as well as can be expected, thank you. And you?"

Is he always going to be this formal, she wonders. Former CIA, raised in England, rich as sin from what she saw of that house. Probably formal as shit, yeah.

Boss bitch mode activate.

"I'm good. Not telling you where I am, you haven't earned that yet. But I'm hoping you and I can develop a strong working relationship. I'm taking over for Andy as team leader, which makes me your boss." The last time Nile introduced herself to new direct reports, they were Jay and Gita. Her squad betrayed the shit out of her, but at least the USMC NCO manual still has her back.

"I thought that might be the case," Copley is saying, and Nile needs to set aside her old squad's betrayal for later.

He seems to be waiting for a response, so she nods.

"I did my due diligence on you in the course of fabricating your [DOW classification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_in_action). Nothing invasive, the intelligence community equivalent of a cursory Google." She purses her lips, and he says, "I can see you're not happy about that, forgive me. Old habits die hard." He doesn't look sorry. "Your service record and your family history show you to be a capable leader."

"Thank you," she says. She's glad he brought it up first, because she wants to be done with this part of their conversation as quickly as humanly possible. "Is my classification finalized, and has my family been notified?"

"Yes. Everything's finalized and your mother has inherited your assets and received your burial flag alongside what she believes is an urn of your ashes."

She doesn't want to know. She really doesn't want to know. But she can't not know.

"Has anyone from my squad talked to her or my brother?"

Copley's eyes soften. "The four Marines under your command spoke with your mother and brother in a video call a few days after the formal notification. They each spoke highly of you as a friend and sister in arms, and they stuck to the story in your paperwork, that you were wounded in action and evacuated to a field hospital where you were stabilized and were briefly conscious, but unfortunately you died of complications from your wounds during transfer to a long-term facility."

Nile takes a moment to dig her front teeth into the tip of her tongue. She nods, and she clears her face. All that's for God, not Copley, and not now.

"Thank you," she says. "Next on the agenda is opsec. Where are you at on setting us up with the gear and accounts we talked about last time?"

He talks her through the secured video conferencing they're using for this call, the phone, email, and cloud storage accounts he's set up for each of them, and recommended options to gear up without those purchases creating new evidence of their location.

"We're staying put for a few months while Andy heals," Nile says once she's satisfied that Copley's hit all the marks, "so we're not going to be generating any new evidence of our existence just yet. I want your SOP on search-and-destroying traces of us, to make sure you're doing your job thoroughly and so we know what and how to report to you when we think we've been recorded."

"Already done, it's in your email."

She lets herself smile at that. Copley is appearing more and more to fit squarely into the wants-to-be-the-best-of-the-best camp when it comes to motivation. The power hungry usually slow-walk memos just to prove they can get away with it. If she's stuck with this guy she's glad he's probably not one of those.

"Great," she says. "Running down the rest of my agenda, we have a few more housekeeping things and then the core project moving forward." She counts off each of the housekeeping bullet points on her fingers as she reads them off her paper. "First, loose ends from the Merrick SNAFU. Did anyone with knowledge of us survive, other than you? Dossiers on them and recommended courses of action. Double-check that no tissue samples or digital or hard copies of data survived our scrub. And I want news clips of all publicly available information, including social media and blog posts, and everything the London police and any other agencies have but aren't releasing to the public. As I say this I see email subject lines indicating most of this is already in here, which is great, keep it coming." She switches back from her email to the video call to see him nodding along, so she continues.

"Second, keep an eye on Booker. Make sure he doesn't get captured or trip and fall into wet cement or anything, and if he does, text me immediately, and only me. He might try to make friends with you, up to you whether you want to do that, or maybe y'all are already buds, it's not my business. My team's business is not currently his business, and my team will brief him when the time comes, not you."

"Understood," Copley says.

"Third, your standing meeting with your new boss will be every Monday at 1200 UTC on this channel."

That brings her to the last item on her list, so she crumples the paper and tosses it into the trash can across the room. Nicky is going to teach her how to compost starting with this piece of paper. Which is, uh, different from the opsec she's used to, but it might be fun.

"And the ongoing project. These people have been playing whack-a-mole for centuries. They've done a lot more good than they realized, but taking mercenary jobs while they wait around to volunteer for the next world war is not a strategy."

Nile takes a deep breath and Copley, to his credit, does not interrupt her. "The theory is we can regenerate after any death, but I don't want to find out if that's true even if climate change or nuclear war means the planet can no longer sustain human life. This team is in a unique position to mitigate risks even the CIA can't touch. We're going to examine the terrain and start choosing our missions based on long-term objectives.

"Your role in that starts with risk assessment and threat modeling. What are the major causes of preventable death, what are current and emerging threats to human lives and the planet, who's already making a dent in which risks and what are their roadblocks, and what could a strike team of three immortals and Andy potentially do to move the needle."

Copley tilts his head but Nile continues before he can even fucking ask.

"No more than 10% of the memo you will write me is allowed to focus on disease, and even then, focus on issues like public health education, treatment access, infrastructure, provider training, and legal and economic barriers. Not a magic drug. There will be no human experimentation here.

"Nuclear weapons, extreme weather, poverty, hunger, human trafficking, forced migration, sexual violence, police brutality, fascism, white nationalism, genocide, bee colony collapse, whatever the fuck Elon Musk is doing in space, everything the CIA keeps an eye on for the President of the United States and everything people like you wish the CIA wouldn't ignore. We're going to get clear-eyed about the scope of these threats and and their root causes and consider what's really possible for us to accomplish with this power we have."

"Understood." And then, with a quirk of his mouth he adds, "Would you like me to salute?"

She quirks her mouth too, but it's not a full smile. It's gonna be a while before she can smile about being forcibly separated from the Marines before her time was up. "I'm no longer a member of the US Marine Corps, there won't be any saluting here. What you _can_ do for me is buy me really nice espresso drinks whenever we have these meetings in person."

"Done and done."

* * *

Nile lets out a long breath after she closes the video call. Ok, that was something. 

Now for dinner, and then she's taking Andy, Joe, and Nicky to an arcade tonight. It's partially a test of how well Copley is following his own SOP — if he passes, he'll earn the knowledge of their location, and she can have him ship their new comms gear instead of having to do it herself — and it's partially because she wants to use whack-a-mole as a teaching tool when she explains the new strategy. But it's mostly because she's earned a damn high school–redux night of Dance Dance Revolution. She can't wait to see if any of her new family can hold their own against her.

Her schedule tomorrow also includes a morning run, needling Nicky and Joe to teach her how to make shakshuka, and an emotional breakdown. She's anticipating a crying jag, prayer, and at least one whole pint of bodega ice cream. If they even have bodegas here. Or ice cream? Fuck.

Fingers crossed she'll only need the one breakdown. But if that's not in the cards, it's not like she doesn't have room in her schedule.

* * *

"Bless you, Nicky," Nile calls from just inside the front door. They're not a no-shoes-indoors kind of household, but Nile's sneakers are caked in mud from her run and she'd rather not have to clean up clods of dirt between her and that delicious smell.

Pasticciotti are Nile's new very favorite thing in the universe. What if pasta was kind of a muffin and kind of a Boston cream pie and kind of a miracle? Seriously, bless Nicky.

Bless the others too, Nile guesses she'll allow, because four of this morning's batch of pastries are untouched and waiting for her when she finally gets her shoes off and dashes into the kitchen.

Joe has powdered sugar in his beard and a blissed-out little smile on his face. Andy's swiping her finger around the side of the now-cold saucepan in search of remains of the pastry cream.

Yeah, this life is pretty ok.

"Where's the chef?" Nile asks.

"Shower," Joe says. "We're going to go into town in a little bit — want to come with us?"

"Mmmmmph" might mean yes or no about a trip to town, it mostly just means Nile is having another pastry-orgasm. These things really are miraculous.

"Sure," she says, now that she's chewed that enormous first bite. "Anything in particular y'all have in mind?"

Andy glowers at Joe and he grins brightly at her.

"Old boss here is only banned from exercise for two more days," Joe says, "so we're thinking about throwing her a party to congratulate her on her fortitude."

"Hayati," says Nicky, sweeping a towel through his hair on his way into the kitchen, "it's your turn in the shower, and mine to encourage Andy for her good habits." He makes a beeline past Nile and Andy to lay a damp kiss to Joe's temple.

Andy waggles the now-clean saucepan at them. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." She sets the pan in the sink and turns on the tap. "Nile, I hope you've savored the downtime, because the second these chuckleheads let me, I'm wiping the floor with your ass."

"Sure thing, Andy, I guess I can let you win your first round back." Nile would be smirking, but she just shoved another overstuffed bite of pasticciotti in her mouth.

* * *

The panniers on their bicycles are stuffed with groceries and treats from their long day of pretending to be tourists. Well, except for Andy's bike, which Nicky had taken the pannier mounts and even the basket off of within an hour of them moving into the safehouse.

It took Nile a few weeks to realize what Joe and Nicky were saying when they did things like tease Andy or wouldn't let her carry the groceries. They aren't going to let her pretend any of this isn't happening. They aren't going to let her get away with not talking about it. And they aren't going to act like it's the end of the world.

Well, a full month of no exertion might be more than strictly necessary, even for a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Work hard, rest hard seems to be the way they do things around here.

By the time Nile carefully pulls all the fresh flowers out of her bags, Joe has unloaded the groceries from his and found the deck of Uno cards Nile had suggested.

Andy takes it out of his hands and opens it up to find the rules sheet. Joe and Nicky will be busy in the kitchen for a while — dinner tonight isn't going to be anything fancy, they're all pretty beat, but tomorrow night's dinner involves, among other things, a 24-hour marinade. Nile sets the flowers delicately on the kitchen table and follows Andy into the living room.

"Is this a math game?" Andy asks as Nile flops down into the cushy armchair across from the couch.

"Nah, it's more of a yelling game. The rules are pretty simple, you just have to match the color or number, no adding or anything."

"More of a yelling at your siblings kind of game?"

Right. Andy's not the only one who the team is lovingly forcing to confront their tragedy little by little all the goddamn time.

Nile smiles a little, because she _does_ love talking about her family, even when it stings. "That, yeah. Indy is such a cheat at cards, he'll draw the wrong number of cards 'by accident' at least five times a game. There was one summer we fought so much over card games that my mom grabbed the Uno deck and the regular deck and tossed every single card in the sink with the dishwater and made us dry them all by hand. They were so warped Indy couldn't get away with his old cheats anymore, but he figured out what the warp looked like on most of the Draw 4 cards. Always finds a way, that kid."

"He and his big sister have that in common," Andy says. She's laid the rules sheet down on the table and has moved onto breaking in the cards, shuffling the deck over and over. "What's this I hear about you bugging Joe and Nicky for sword fighting training already? Language immersion and cooking and field medic practicum aren't enough for your first few weeks?"

"I mean, it's sword fighting! Y'all look like hot shit and you know it, I wanna look like that too!"

Nile can see that Andy's more tired than the rest of them, but she keeps asking questions, won't let Nile fall silent for too long. It's nice. They sit there talking until Joe calls them in for dinner.

The next night, that marinade turns out be extremely worth the wait. After dinner they open a second bottle of wine and Andy proposes New Uno in honor of New Boss. Yellow is Italian, Red is English, Blue is Arabic, Green is whatever Andy feels like, you've got to participate in the conversation in whatever language the card in play says, and if you use the wrong language or go too long without talking, you have to draw. Nile learns some _vulgar_ expressions and by the end of the night she feels like she's known these people for years.

Andy doesn't wipe the floor with Nile's ass until 1500 the next afternoon. Game delay on account of hangover turns out to be a very good call, because Andy manages to avoid cutting herself on any of the several empty bottles that Nile maybe could've taken out to the recycling bin before Andy predictably used them as weapons.

Oh yeah, Nile totally lets her win. That's _totally_ what happens.

* * *

They're enjoying another lazy late morning. Nile's scrolling through the new, untraceable iPhone that Copley shipped to their safehouse outside Thessaloniki. The mural across the widest wall of the living room, their message to Quỳnh that she'll be welcomed home on her own terms whenever she's ready but they'll respect her space in the meantime, is coming along nicely. They'll probably finish design and start painting by next week.

This worked last time, so Nile takes another deep breath and starts another potentially very awkward conversation.

"Hey, uh," Nile says, and they all look up at her from their various staring off into space. "I've got some questions about how this all works, uh, medically, if y'all are ok with that?"

"Of course, habibti," Joe says, and he's got a wrinkle between his eyebrows. Such a sweetheart, that man. "Is there something you're worried about?"

"I just, well— y'all went through some shit recently, I know asking about the limits of all this might bring up some stuff." She takes another deep breath. Joe and Nicky are both looking at her with encouragement, so she asks, "Like, say we're in a field medic situation — if someone needs blood, can a transfusion from me hurt them? What do we actually know about our physiology?"

"See, I told you," Joe says to Nicky, who purses his lips at him. It's playful, probably, Nile thinks.

"I thought you might turn out to be a nerd," Andy says with a grin.

Nile tosses her wadded-up napkin at Andy. "Hey! Nothing wrong with being a nerd."

"It is a good question," Joe says. "And we don't really know the answer. That was, ah," and Nile sees him pause to ask Nicky something with his eyes. "The science things were usually Booker's area. And we've all been field medics at one point or another, we just haven't studied things in the formal way you're used to."

Nile hopes the little smile she sends Nicky's way is the right thing to do. She makes eye contact with Joe and nods. "Got it. Ok. Uh, so what do we do if one of us loses a limb? I'm guessing it regenerates, but like my body would grow back my arm, not my arm would also grow back my body?"

Andy laughs. "It's faster and it hurts a lot less if you put the severed limb next to the wound and let the flesh knit back together. Not always possible in a fight, of course. I've lost fingers plenty of times where I couldn't exactly go combing the battlefield for them afterwards."

"Uh— Nicky, we don't have to keep talking about this if it's too much," Nile says when she notices he's got a hand over his mouth and a wrinkle between his eyebrows.

But Nicky is _laughing_. "Cucciola, your face!"

"Did you just call me a puppy?!" she shouts at him, mock-offended and grinning.

"You're learning! I'm so proud of you, piccolina," he says, and he reaches over to boop her on the nose.

She rolls her eyes at him. "Ok, next question. Am I still allergic to shellfish or will I just recover after anaphylactic shock? And for no reason whatsoever, are any of y'all allergic to anything?"

Andy smirks at Joe but doesn't say anything.

Joe says, "You are, unfortunately, not immune to allergies or disease or hangovers any more than you are immune to gunshot wounds. You will simply recover more quickly, or if you die, reawaken."

Nile nods. Nicky's making faces again, but this time, Joe beats her to explaining before she can ask about it. "Nicky had a series of unfortunate incidents with tomatoes in the 16th century."

"Tomatoes? But you're from Italy!"

"I'm from Genova. Italia is a recent invention. And tomatoes are native to Mesoamerica," he says with a glare at Andy, who he is choosing to blame for egging Joe into mentioning this.

Andy will take this blame happily, if her look of delight is anything to go on.

"Wait, what?" Nile says.

"Tomatoes," says Joe, "are native to your continent, not any of ours. There are many foods that were unknown to us until the horrors of colonization."

Nicky's glare turns darker and inward. He says, "Columbian exchange is far too polite a term for it."

"But it did bring us chocolate," Andy says darkly.

"Chocolate??" shouts Nile. "You mean to tell me you were thousands of years old before you ever tasted _chocolate_?"

The mood lifts as Nicky launches into the story of the first time they'd tried chocolate, and the conversation grows into more stories about their first experiences with such newfangled delicacies as _peppers_ and _potatoes_. Truly mind-boggling what this new family of hers considers the _recent_ past.

Nile's fascinated, and a little devastated for them that they lived so long without chocolate _or vanilla, what the fuck_. But she does have a few more burning questions before she lets them veer off into too many rabbit holes.

"Ok," Nile says. "I feel like Andy's about to tell me she remembers when humans invented cows or some shit, so lemme stop you there. Just a few more medical questions if that's ok?" They all nod, and she asks, "What about incurable diseases, like HIV or herpes?"

Andy cackles, honest to God cackles. "Herpes goes away. Well, at least the sores do — I haven't exactly gotten tested."

What.

Nile decides the only reasonable thing to do here is laugh.

"As best we can tell," says Joe, "whatever causes our immortality makes chronic illnesses run their course quickly and cure themselves. We don't know how it works, and now we have very good reason not to investigate it further. But rest assured if you contract anything it won't last long."

"Huh," Nile says. "Ok. Thank you — I know that might suck for y'all to talk about."

"You can talk to us about anything you want, Nile," says Nicky. He and Joe are both smiling at her so softly.

"So the, uh, one of the big things I've been wondering about—" Nile trails off. Joe nods encouragingly, bless him. "I don't want to assume what body parts anybody has but I'm hoping at least one of you can help me out with this one. And please don't break my heart here. Am I going to have my period every month for thousands of years?"

Nicky reaches out for a quick clasp of her shoulder. He looks like he's trying to wordlessly communicate something significant, but she has no idea what he's going for.

"Honestly," Andy says, "I have no idea." Nile meets Andy's eyes and finds a wry humor there. "You're the first one in a few thousand years. Nutrition wasn't steady enough for regular menstrual cycles for most of my or Quỳnh's time. I have no idea what somebody raised around modern chemicals can expect, beyond if you've had a period since becoming one of us, you're going to have more of them."

Nile's mouth twists up a little. She figured, but damn.

"The good news," Andy says, "is if you want kids, you can give birth to as many as you want."

Nile hadn't thought of that.

Andy lets out a long breath. "The bad news is you'll outlive them. Quỳnh had three children with someone from the clan we spent the 4th century with. When it started to be noticeable that she wasn't aging, she faked her death and we moved halfway across the continent for a few generations."

_Fuck._

"She died in childbirth with her youngest," Andy says. "Nobody but me and the baby to tell on her. Damn cute baby."

"I had kids too, before," Joe says before Andy can start to get the wrong kind of quiet. "Two of them. I let my wife and family believe I'd been killed by the Franks. I was able to keep track of my descendants for a few generations, Nicolò and I would check in on them, leave the occasional gift at their door. But time passes, you lose track."

"I always figured I'd wait to think about kids after I got out of the Corps," Nile says. "Guess I got more time now."

A moment passes, and then another. "Would you like some more tea, tesoro?" Nicky asks, and Nile realizes he's addressing her.

"Oh— yeah, that'd be great, thank you," she says.

After a minute, something occurs to her. "Wait— shit, does this mean I have to worry about getting a new IUD every 5 years until somebody invents better birth control?"

Andy laughs. "If your sex life involves sperm, probably, yeah. Though I can tell you from more than one experience that if you're pregnant and you don't want to be, if you die, you'll miscarry. Kinda gruesome but it works."

"Damn," Nile says. "Thanks, I think?"

Nicky hands her a steaming cup of tea. "No pennyroyal in this one, I promise," he says, and Nile almost drops the cup.

Joe adds, "If you find yourself in such a situation and don't want to take Andy's advice just now, we know how to forage for it."

"If that gives you any idea of how advanced our medical knowledge is?" Andy says with a quirk of her eyebrow.

Nile laughs into her tea.

She takes a few sips and enjoys the quiet before she voices the last of the burning questions she'd been sitting on until she felt like she knew these people well enough to ask. Here we go.

"You, uh, you said whether you're good guys depends on the century. Just making sure, which side did y'all fight on in the American Civil War?"

"Yours," Nicky says without missing a beat.

"We've seen a lot of slavery in our time, me most of all. It's always been ugly, but that—" and Andy pauses. "We spent around 20 years in the US, trying to do what we could to help the abolitionists, and then the war."

Joe says, "One time Andy bought every single person up for sale at a slave auction, freed them all, and stole back the money."

Andy looks down at her hands. "Still wasn't enough," she says.

"Still something," Nicky says.

"I could pretend to be a monstrously wealthy widow starting over on a new plantation only so many times before they would've caught on and burned me at the stake. I wish I could've done more, freed more people."

They're all silent for a moment.

"Though," Andy says, "it's _amazing_ how many weapons you could hide under those enormous antebellum skirts. I was almost sorry to have to switch to men's clothes for the war."

Joe grins suddenly. "Boss," he says, "do you remember that time you first switched from the layered petticoats to the new metal undergarment thing, the— what was that thing called?"

"Oh, the hoop skirt!" Nicky says. "The metal cage underwear thing!"

"Yes! She sounded like an atrocious wind chime with all those swords knocking around under there," Joe, now scrupulously avoiding Andy's glare, says to Nile. "It was hilarious."

Nile lets herself smile.

* * *

Copley does good work, she'll give him that.

Today's call was a lot longer than their check-ins had been so far. Lots of actionable intel to review. Nile knew when she gave him this assignment that she was going to learn a lot of ugly things about the world. Fewer and fewer of her dreams of Quỳnh are nightmarish these days — just in time for a whole host of new nightmares.

But there's a feeling in her gut all afternoon that has nothing to do with Exxon Mobil or Putin or any of the human traffickers whose names sit in her cloud storage. It's like cotton candy made of thorns. Sharp but fragile, and it disintegrates if she looks at it too closely, only to poke at her anew from somewhere she can't see it.

It lasts through the evening, through dinner, through her shower. Yesterday was supposed to be wash day, but she was too sore from hand-to-hand drills with Andy to keep her arms lifted long enough.

It's not until she's got her pjs on and her detangling comb in her hand that she bursts into tears.

Nile's always been what her mother called an efficient crier. Ever since—

Oh.

_I miss my mom._

She lets the tears run their course. She squeezes up her whole face and leans over the sink and sobs and gasps and sobs again until her breathing starts to slow of its own accord.

She gives herself a long look in the mirror. She's still holding the detangling comb tight in her hand, and she makes herself relax her grip. 

The house is quiet. Andy is out back with a beer, probably staring up into the stars. Nile can hear Nicky futzing around in the kitchen. Either of them would welcome her, she knows.

"Joe?" she says in a small voice.

He looks up from his sketchbook. There's a wrinkle between his eyebrows, and then he's closing the book around his pencil and getting up from the couch.

"What's wrong, kibdii?"

She can already feel her breathing ease. "Will you help me with my hair?"

"Of course," he says with a gentle smile.

They build a nest of pillows and blankets and hair accoutrements on her bedroom floor, and they don't move from it for nearly three hours.

At first Nile just tells him what she wants help with, and Joe is deft and quiet. Eventually he asks, "Would you like me to tell you a story? I have some good ones involving fashion disasters."

The cotton candy thorns dissolve as he talks. Within ten minutes Nile's laughing. After an hour, she has some _very special_ mental pictures of Joe and Nicky's facial hair choices over the years. Booker's, too.

Nile is starting to realize that Joe's anger burns hot, bright, and fast — just like her brother. Indy would rage and scream and cry over something, then a day later he'd be over it like it had happened years ago. If Joe can talk about Booker with affection even though he's still hurting, maybe Nile can start to speak aloud at least a little of what she's been holding in about the family she doesn't think she'll ever stop missing like a limb.

Her twists turn out beautifully. Joe offers to do this again, with the caveat that he'll need to practice at cornrows before he's good enough at them for her to be seen in public wearing his work. Or he can just sit with her and tell stories, just the two of them, whenever she wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where’s Nile’s boss bitch mode characterization coming from? [This is how the US Department of Defense propagandizes its non-commissioned officers](https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2011393/noncommissioned-officers-give-big-advantage-to-us-military/): “American NCOs and petty officers are empowered in ways their partner nation counterparts often aren't. They understand the orders they receive, the resources available to them and the objectives they need to reach. They are trained to use their initiative within the scope of their instructions. NCOs are the doers. They provide inspiration, purpose, motivation, direction and discipline to the troops they lead, and they are also responsible for the individual training of those in their charge.” This is _propaganda_ and to be clear I believe the US military is fundamentally abusive to its own troops and all people it interacts with. Recently-former US Marine Corps Corporal Nile Freeman isn’t on that page yet. From her perspective, she just lost everything she’s ever known, and she just got the biggest promotion of any Marine in history. We cope with big scary new things by starting with what we know.
> 
> I’m not taking pro-military political corrections but I’ll happily take USMC culture nitpick edits in the comments. I'll happily take corrections generally! You're welcome to talk to me in the comments or [over on Tumblr at nevermindirah](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/).
> 
> SOP = standard operating procedure  
> NCO = non-commissioned officer  
> opsec = operational security (ie data privacy)  
> SNAFU = situation normal all fucked up, I don't know how common it is in today's military but it's the kind of thing Steve Rogers would've said all the goddamn time back in the day and I'm transitioning to a new fandom ok!
> 
> [A recipe for Nicky's pasticciotti.](https://anitalianinmykitchen.com/italian-cream-filled-pastry/)
> 
> I'm not the first person to headcanon that Nile's parents named her little brother after the Indus River. Shout out to [Les Petits Monstres by WinterEquinox](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26531773/chapters/64670728) and the other fic featuring Indy Freeman that I also love but can't currently remember the name of!
> 
> Habibti = my dear in Arabic  
> Cucciola = puppy (endearment) in Italian  
> Piccolina = little one in Italian  
> Tesoro = treasure (endearment) in Italian  
> Kibdii = my dear / beloved in Tounsi  
> [More here about Tounsi, the Maghrebi Arabic dialect spoken in Tunisia.](https://hottopicmonk.tumblr.com/post/630164029175889920/modern-tounsi-vocabulary-tounsi-is-the-tunisian)
> 
> Fun historical facts about hoop skirts in the section of [this excellent Bernadette Banner video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPUCXnjtIlE) that talks about the biopic _Harriet_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Detailed discussion of the Trump administration's immigration policy including references to separating children from their caregivers, ICE concentration camps, and white supremacist vigilantes. The depictions in this fic are not graphic but I've included several links to heartbreaking and enraging news articles that do include graphic depictions of what my government has done to real live people.
>   * Brief references to sexual abuse by leaders of the Church of England.
>   * A character threatens torture but doesn't follow through on it. The threatened character would accept torture as a form of self-harm. It's a brief conversation and not acted on.
>   * Brief depiction of alcoholism.
> 


The team's first mission since the Merrick debacle is a milk run. One of the local shipping companies has been getting extremely out of hand with wage theft and lax workplace safety. No kills, just intel gathering and its judicious public release, in and out easy peasy.

It's a test of their team cohesion that they pass with flying colors. It's also a test of Copley's theory that abusive employers are a major source of human suffering that can be curtailed by public shaming. Nile is skeptical but willing to be proven wrong.

The real challenge of this mission is getting Andy to agree to quarterback from behind a computer instead of going in first.

When Nile uses the phrase "quarterback from behind a computer," all three of her new family pretend they have no idea what she's talking about. Nicky's dancing eyes finally give up the game.

She loves these people.

* * *

Nile is well aware that the United States of America is, from time to time, a racist bullshit machine.

Fully aware. Painfully aware.

She feels like she shouldn't be as surprised as she is.

It's been ten minutes since she texted Copley, five more until he'll log into their video call. All she can do is stare at her laptop.

Headline after headline.

[Inside a Texas Building Where the Government is Holding Immigrant Children](https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-a-texas-building-where-the-government-is-holding-immigrant-children)

[Doctor compares conditions for unaccompanied children at immigrant holding centers to 'torture facilities'](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doctor-compares-conditions-immigrant-holding-centers-torture-facilities/story?id=63879031)

[An Expert on Concentration Camps Says That's Exactly What the U.S. Is Running at the Border](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a27813648/concentration-camps-southern-border-migrant-detention-facilities-trump/)

They are fixing this. God help her, they are fucking fixing this.

"Hello, Ms. Freeman," says Copley when he finally logs in.

"Hey," she says. "Give me options. What can we do?"

He looks like he's hesitating. Why the fuck is he hesitating?

"I can see you're upset," he says. Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, she's fucking upset. "I can see you want to act quickly. But the best course of action is the one that is most likely to achieve our goal. What do you hope to accomplish, exactly?"

What the actual fuck.

"The hell you mean what do I hope to accomplish? I want to get those kids out of those goddamn concentration camps! Give me options!"

"For example, do you hope to ensure that the children you release from detention make it safely to homes where they will be well cared for after their traumatic experiences? Would you be satisfied by cramming them into your team's safehouses or perhaps motels, would an orphanage or a series of foster families be adequate, or is your goal to reunite each of them with their loved ones?"

Oh.

_Fuck._

"I hadn't thought about that yet," she says. It's grudging, but she says it. A good leader will admit when someone under her command has a point.

"I don't want to be callous about an upsetting issue," he says, signaling he's about to be callous about an upsetting fucking issue, "but" — and there it is — "this is a complex issue requiring complex solutions, and the United States has been holding migrant children in detention centers for years now. What's new is the number of children detained in now very overcrowded facilities, the Trump administration's purposeful separation of children from their caregivers, and the media attention."

"Ok," she says. "Fine. You're right. It's complicated."

She takes a few deep breaths.

"About a month ago I asked my team what they were up to during the Civil War. Andy told me she freed an entire ship full of my and probably your ancestors, and her only regret was she couldn't save more. I'm not mad at her for failing to singlehandedly end slavery. Now tell me what we can _do_."

Copley nods.

Nile watches for a few minutes as he flips through papers just out of range of his camera. She sees him mark passages with a highlighter.

"Alright," he says. "It's conceivable that your team could free the people detained at one ICE facility, perhaps two or even three facilities before so many reinforcements are brought in that you would certainly be captured."

He pauses.

"Ok?" she says.

"Considerations include, as I mentioned before, where the released detainees will go. A scrub of all evidence of your team, which will be quite labor intensive. And the impact of this terrorist attack on US government facilities on US soil on the political environment that is already hostile to immigrants."

" _Excuse me?_ "

"Ms. Freeman, you are proposing an armed raid of one or more US government facilities which will almost certainly result in the deaths of federal employees, many of whom are US military veterans like yourself. In this political and media environment where ICE employees killed by your team will instantly become martyrs, your actions could spark a backlash that will only worsen conditions for the people you aim to help."

"Fuck," she breathes. It's all she can think to say.

"You and I have discussed many threats but we have not yet had the harder conversations about amelioration. The reality is there are no adequately pure choices available to us here. How do you know if the solution you have in mind will actually increase the well-being of the people on the ground? What about the backlash, who will your solution radicalize and to what end? [United States military intelligence action during the Cold War](https://www.thenation.com/article/border-patrol-refugees-guatemala-cia-war-crimes/) was a major precipitating factor in the political climates driving both the migrants you're hoping to free from ICE detention and the militants who killed both you and your father in Afghanistan."

He at least has the grace to say that last thing quietly. Nile tilts her head but she doesn't let her lip wobble.

"We all have to live with the choices we make," Copley says. "I'm staring down a sentence of perhaps as many as 50 years of living with my mistakes. You may have just begun a lifetime of 6,000 years. I tell you these things because I believe your team can exponentially improve the fate of humanity, but we must be strategic at a level that you may find uncomfortable."

They look at each other for a long moment.

"You've made your point," she says. Fuck, her jaw hurts. "Just so we're crystal clear, you're the analyst and I'm the commander. You tell me everything you know, when I ask for your opinion you give it, and you obey my decisions. Understood?"

"Understood."

"Good. I'm going to take this under advisement and discuss with my team. Be ready for a decision in the next 24 hours."

* * *

_Fuck._

Nile asks Joe to practice braiding her hair while she thinks out loud.

It helps, a little.

It helps her think, at least. He's going to need a lot more practice braiding. But damn has Yusuf al-Kaysani had a lot of practice holding space. She should really return the favor one of these days.

Once Joe is undoing his loving but messy attempt at cornrows, Nile's ready for Andy and Nicky to join them. They pore over maps and lists and dossiers, weigh pros and cons.

* * *

48 hours later finds them barreling across the East Texas coast disarming every known white supremacist border vigilante within a hundred-mile radius of the ICE camp they're about to liberate.

Copley has anonymously informed several immigrant rights activists that an operation is impending. He gives them just enough information to prepare while maintaining plausible deniability — it would be unacceptable for this action to result in lawsuits or criminal charges against immigrant rights activists whose communities need them desperately and who had no say in his team's operation.

The people Copley informed have fired up their WhatsApp trees and made arrangements so that everyone who's about to be freed will have somewhere safe to go until their families can be located. Medical care is ready and waiting. A phalanx of lawyers is ready to fight for these children for the long haul.

But Nile knows there's no way to guarantee that each of the people she frees from this detention center will be safe and well a week from now. She grits her teeth and slashes another ICE employee's tire at the edge of the facility's sprawling parking lot.

They've selected a detention facility for its proximity to a major city and therefore both anonymity and social support for the children they're about to free. They've arranged nutritious food and clean clothes and secure transportation to the people who will help these kids next. Any border vigilantes who might try to hunt down these kids are about to find their armories empty. The op is as well-planned as it could be given the timeline and the risks.

It's time for Nile to do what she was trained for.

By the end of the day on Friday June 28, 2019, Nile and her team have freed 338 human beings from an American concentration camp. The teenagers carried the toddlers to the dozens of minivans and pickup trucks Copley's contacts had arranged to take them to relative safety.

Nile and her team have shot 41 federal employees in their arms or legs. No kills. No one in critical condition.

None of the children were injured in the op, but plenty were nursing earlier injuries. Every single one of them looked tired and hungry. Some of the kids thanked them, but some looked just as wary of them as the ICE guards.

Once each of the children is safely on their way, Andy drives the team 45 minutes away to a Starbucks parking lot. They wait while Joe posts a video to a YouTube account Copley had set up for this purpose. He sends the link to a Washington Post reporter and destroys the phone. Then they're off to a private airfield and out of the country.

Three days later, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez visits a different ICE facility with a news crew in tow. The Congresswoman grills the employees at that facility about the video anonymously posted to YouTube from the Houston facility over the weekend. The video where a white man in a balaclava paces slowly in front of a cage full of ICE employees, arms folded, rifle at his hip, while another man asks from behind the camera why they work for ICE. The video where dozens of federal employees proudly admit that they work for the Department of Homeland Security because of their white supremacist ideology.

"Do you condemn the white supremacy of your colleagues?" the Congresswoman asks a guard employed by the US government to lock children in cages.

* * *

A week later, Nile opens her email to find a series of news clips from Copley. Congress is investigating white nationalist extremism among federal employees. Immigrant rights groups have raised millions of dollars. Customs and Border Patrol agents continue to detain migrants at the border. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is blocking a vote on legislation to [define fear of gang-related or domestic violence as a valid basis for asylum claims](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/11/politics/border-immigrants-asylum-restrictions/index.html).

Lucía, the fifteen year old girl Nile had helped make it out of the facility and into a van on her twisted ankle, had made it safely to her aunt's house in Minnesota.

_"Still wasn't enough," Andy had said._

_"Still something," Nicky had said._

Nile rubs her eyes.

* * *

Just a few weeks later, Nile turns 25.

They've settled back into their routines. All that's really changed since the ICE op is Nile now makes time every day to climb her favorite tree along her running route and sit in its big branches to pray.

Joe and Nicky and Andy all keep nudging her to tell them how she's feeling and what she needs, just like they've been doing for months. One afternoon Joe's showing her how to make couscous by hand and they get to talking about things he and the others still do even though the world has moved on, just because these things remind them of home.

It's then that Nile admits she wants to make a big deal of her 25th birthday.

Joe's egged her on enough that by the time Nicky joins them in the kitchen she shouts, "Nicky, it's about to be my birthday!"

"What's a birthday?" Nicky asks with that twinkle in his eye that Nile adores.

"Ha ha," she says. "C'mon, it's my first quarter-century, my first baby step towards being ancient crones like all y'all!"

None of them even know their own birthdays. Joe and Nicky mark the years with their religious holidays, Andy with the solstices. They know that modern people do birthday celebrations, and they've participated occasionally when their lives have intersected with mortals for long enough. But they have basically no concept of what goes into an American child's birthday party.

Nile is delighted to educate them on things like ice cream cake and those themed party kits with the matching invites and paper plates and decorations.

The late-July day arrives bright and warm. Nile jumps out of bed for her run, and by the time she's back Andy and Joe have hung streamers all over the house. Nicky has made pasticciotti.

After breakfast and showers, they bike into Thessaloniki. First order of business: a birthday dress.

When Nile was little her dad would take her shopping for special occasion clothes. When she was 15 and came home from her solo trip to a series of thrift stores with a gorgeous gown for her very first school dance, Nile's mom had cried and hugged her and told her how proud she was that Nile had inherited her father's impeccable taste.

Joe and her father couldn't be more different: their attitudes about mornings, for starters. The tinge of homophobia Nile chooses not to think about. Master Sergeant Freeman was gruff where Joe is expressive.

But that thing Lupita Nyongo's character in Star Wars says about seeing the same eyes in different people? When Joe catches her eye in the boutique's dressing room mirror, she can feel her dad right there alongside them.

She picks out a bright blue dress with a ruffled hem and green and orange accents.

Once she's paid for the dress and put away the clothes she'd biked in, they head to the market to see what they see and buy things for picnic lunch. Nicky has a series of run-ins with what they determine is the same bird who insists on following them around — Joe suggests that the bird is jealous that Nicky's beak is the handsomest the world has ever seen. One of the market vendors, a very pretty thirtysomething selling cheeses, flirts shamelessly with both Nile and Andy. Nile enjoys flirting back, but then the vendor suggests they meet up for a threesome, which she and Andy both laugh at so hard that the vendor looks like she wants the earth to open up and swallow her. They buy a log of goat cheese rolled in spices and leave the poor woman to her embarrassment.

By nightfall they've made it back to the house and Nile's somehow hungry again despite their enormous lunch and an afternoon spent snacking on goat cheese with olives and pita. Nicky and Joe reveal the first course of dinner: homemade ice cream cake complete with the traditional too-sugary icing and 25 candles.

Andy is in charge of the rest of dinner, which turns out to be grilling meats and veggies and pita over an open fire. They sit around the fire late into the night. Andy even talks about the first time she and Quỳnh feasted like this, a rare story from the days before Andy met Nicky and Joe. Nile tells them all about her brother's 6th birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese and his subsequent nightmares about the animatronic mice. Indy was too embarrassed to tell their parents so he crawled into Nile's bed every night for a week.

That night Nile sleeps like a log, warm and happy and loved. She dreams of climbing the Eiffel Tower in her new dress and swinging her legs over the sides while she prays just like she does in the branches of her favorite tree.

* * *

It's not until he gets the damn key in the lock that he notices something's wrong, but his hand is on his gun before the door can swing open.

"Booker," says the person who must have picked the lock to his apartment door.

He blinks. And again. Is this—

"You're her," he says. "You made it out." He eases up his stance but doesn't take his finger off the trigger of his gun.

"I did. All by myself."

He closes the door with a sweep of his foot behind him, gun still trained at her. Quỳnh. It's really her.

"What can I do for you?" he asks.

"Now that I've met you, your benders will no longer disturb my sleep," she says. She sets down her glass and starts to look around his apartment. "I think I would like to take my revenge."

She's running her fingers across the spines of his books on their shelves, rifling through the papers on his coffee table. She opens his pantry, snorts, closes the door again.

"I saw that you betrayed my Andromache and this is why you are separated from the others," she says.

Booker has gotten his bearings enough to step in from the doorway, holster his gun, and open a new bottle of whisky to replace the one he dropped in the hallway. He offers it to her but she shakes her head, so no need for a glass.

"I drowned millions of times while my family failed to rescue me," she says. "I could have my vengeance by torturing my betrayer, but I see in my dreams of the newest one that my Andromache is mortal now. I could torture my betrayer's betrayer instead, what do you think?"

Booker nods.

"You agree?" Quỳnh asks with a detached sort of amusement.

Booker takes a long pull from the new bottle. "I haven't had a full night's sleep in more than 200 years. I don't know if you've caught up on your history yet, but we have international legal definitions of torture now, and sleep deprivation counts. What's a little more, and for such a good cause?"

He can picture it, letting her murder him however many times she feels like it. _Let_ her murder him, as if she's not a million times stronger in a fight than he is — no, more like he deserves the pain, she deserves the outlet, no point in trying to fight back against the inevitable.

"Hmm," Quỳnh finally says, turning to face him after a long examination of the view from his window. "This is meant to be therapeutic for _me_ , you bastard. Pain doesn't fix what you did."

Booker nods again. There's no change in his face or his posture.

Quỳnh completes her circuit around his living room and moves to raid his fridge. Ah, she sees that he has ice cream in his freezer. Excellent.

She takes the unopened pint of chocolate-strawberry-vanilla swirl and what appears to be a clean spoon and lounges across his couch, feet up on one arm and back propped against the other.

He has sat down in the chair that was closest to him. He drinks his rotgut quietly. Stares out the window. As if waiting to be murdered, or given an assignment, or left alone to slowly die.

If an attractive white man dies of loneliness but nobody is around to see, is his life even a unique work of self-congratulatory artistic genius?

Some time later, Quỳnh sets down the now-empty pint and says, matter-of-fact, "I think I will take my vengeance on people who feel no guilt for their crimes." She looks over and sees that Booker nods. "The men who sentenced me to millions of deaths are long dead themselves, but their successors continue to hide their ugly hearts behind their God. You were Andromache's machinery person, were you not? You will help me identify and track down rapists in the Church of England, and you will help me kill them. Yes?"

Again, Booker simply nods.

"I need fresh air," she says. "I'll return here in a week, and by then you will have improved the smell of this place and compiled me a list of those who deserve my vengeance."

The door clicks shut. Booker's nearing the bottom of this new bottle and gives no indication that he noticed her leave.

Booker wakes up a few hours later with another smashed bottle at his feet, a raging headache, and a vague memory of Quỳnh on dry land. He gets his confirmation when he forces himself to go eat something, and on his kitchen table he finds an empty ice cream pint with a spoon sticking out of it, and underneath it a note reminding him of his assignment. The handwriting is shaky at first and gets smoother.

Is that glittery purple ink? He's pretty sure he doesn't have colorful gel pens lying around.

* * *

He does as Quỳnh asked, and two weeks later he's driving with her across the Chunnel in a van packed to the gills with weapons.

They don't talk much. She does the highway driving and he does the city driving, and as the trip progresses, the boxes of ammo and throwing knives and poisons get swapped out for cases of Scotch and bags of cash and jewelry. By the end of the trip he feels half like a roadie for an extremely goth pop star, half like a suburban dad driving his daughter around to football matches. That thought doesn't hurt appreciably any more than any of the others, a benefit of doing as little thinking as humanly possible.

Quỳnh stole _a lot_ of money from the creeps she wiped off the face of the Earth, and when she drops Booker back off at his sad little Paris apartment she throws a duffle full of cash at him.

He takes a neat stack of euros to a bar that stocks a wide selection of American bourbons and ryes. He tips on every drink like an American tourist despite his obviously Provençal accent, orders dinner, and pretends to read a novel so the bartender won't bug him about it when he's still sitting there four hours later well on his way to blackout.

"Can you _believe_ she showed her face at that party?"

Booker looks up from his book to see two people at a nearby table. Probably twentysomething women from the looks of them, but you never know. One of them is gesturing wildly and the other is hanging on their every word.

Eavesdropping on their conversation proves to be much more interesting than his novel. An hour and two more doubles later, he could probably draw a chart of their romantic lives.

Adèle's ex sounds like a piece of shit.

"Like, we get it, everyone you ever loved used or abandoned you! You're scared I'm going to abandon you too so you pull all this dumb dramatic manipulative shit, and then you act like I'm the asshole for setting one boundary one time! Jesus, just go to goddamn therapy already. How the hell is there still a queer left on this planet who doesn't know that trauma changes your cognition and you're going to keep repeating the same damn patterns until you process whatever your shitty family did to you?"

She's crying now, and her friend is holding her hand tightly.

Booker flags the bartender. He manages to settle his bill and make it halfway down the block before he starts crying.

A few days later he gets a postcard from Quỳnh, signed but without any other message. It's a gorgeous photo of a vast expanse of ocean, glittering with sun and clear enough to see a thousand fish swimming below the water. It could be a threat, maybe a kindness. Either way, it's more thought from her than he deserves.

He hasn't been able to keep the thought out of his head, what the young woman had said to her friend in the bar. "Just go to goddamn therapy already."

Isn't therapy where you tell someone all your darkest secrets? Telling someone he was a suicidal immortal is, after all, exactly what got him exiled.

But Nile wanted to let him off with an apology. And Quỳnh spent a lot more time with him than was strictly necessary for that murder spree.

He just stands there in the middle of his apartment looking at the postcard for he doesn't know how long.

And then he's sitting down to google "therapy where you don't have to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Several hundred of the children who the Trump administration separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border are still separated from their parents as of late October 2020.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/us/migrant-children-separated.html)
> 
> While we all wait for election results and cross our fingers tight that the fascist will both lose the election and leave office peacefully, friendly reminder to my fellow citizens to [be ready to pressure the hell out of a Biden administration to stop deportations and fight harder than the Obama administration did to pass real immigration reform](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/12/biden-immigration-2020-1411691). If you want to get involved in immigrant justice in the United States, [Mijente](https://mijente.net/) and [RAICES](https://www.raicestexas.org/) are good places to start.
> 
> Chapter 3 is coming Sunday. Booker and Nile will find themselves in the same city.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: Thanksgiving. They celebrate it. There's references to it being a fucked-up holiday celebrating genocide and settler colonialism but Nile isn't all the way on the Thanksgiving Is A Fucked-Up Holiday page yet. There's also a lot of detail about food.

Nile smiles at her camera as the video call comes online. "How the hell is it October already?" she says.

Copley smiles back at her. "When I turned 40," he says, "people told me that years would start to pass in the blink of an eye. What do you think that's going to be like when you turn, say, 400?"

"Shut up!"

"Too soon?" he asks, eyes twinkling.

"Ok, speaking of things that are _too soon_ , I had a terrible idea the other day that I'm going to tell you about on the condition that you're not allowed to do anything about it for at least 5 years."

"This sounds enticing," he says, steepling his fingers.

She pauses for dramatic effect — and because this level of trust with Copley is new. He hasn't given her a single reason to distrust him in six months of working together closely, and their rapport is growing into real friendship, but this is... touchy.

"You know how 23andMe is a privacy nightmare and just pathetically inaccurate for most people from the African diaspora?" she says. "It occurred to me the other day that Black scientists with the right funding stream could build something better."

"Oh, that _is_ interesting."

"You are _not_ allowed to do a damn thing with this idea for at least 5 years, maybe 10, you understand me?"

Copley laughs. "Yes ma'am. I swear."

"Good!" she says, laughing with him. Another tentative check mark in the trust column.

She opens up her notebook — just a spiral-bound student notebook, nothing special, except for how she and Joe sit together doodling more evenings than not — and flips to her list for today. Cartoon puppies are bounding up and down the side of the page.

"I was thinking more about how much we still don't know about how the oil companies would react to some of the tactics we're considering. I can't believe this is my life now, but I think it's time to start talking about corporate espionage."

"I'm so glad to hear you say that," Copley says with a wolfish smile.

* * *

"Anything else for the list?" Nile asks the room at large.

Nicky pokes at her with his toe, right under the ribs where he knows she's ticklish. "You're the one who's insisting on importing special holiday foods, cucciola."

"Yes, and you're going to love it, honeybunch," she says with a smirk. "I just mean, while we're having our gopher bring us things we might as well go wild."

Andy hums, faux-deep in thought, then declares with an expansive gesture, "Tell him to bring me the finest chocolates in all the land. He'll know what I mean." She winks, and Nile does _not_ want to think about what that means.

They've invited Copley to the safehouse for Thanksgiving. It's Nile's first as an immortal, and the others' first generally. There's been some epic teasing about her wanting to celebrate a colonizer holiday, which, fair. She knows she could end the teasing real quick with a sad smile and "I just want to eat what my mom used to make," and it would be true in its way. But she celebrates Thanksgiving how some of her Muslim friends growing up celebrated Christmas. The origin of the holiday, sticky though it is, is background noise compared to the real meaning: it's just what we do every winter to hold our family close.

Nile wants that with her new family. Saying so gets her scooped up in a four-way hug.

She still finds Joe and Nicky asleep in her bed the night following that conversation — fully clothed, thank God, but leaving no room for her to squeeze into her own damn bed. The next morning when she wakes up on the couch to the two of them noisily making their way toward coffee, she gives them the full force of her big-sister glare.

Joe winks at her. He is _not_ awake enough to be winking, what the fuck! "I thought we'd join in your celebration of going into someone else's home and deciding you live there now," he says.

She throws her pillow at them. "Anything the Crusader wants to say?" 

"I'll bring you coffee, dear heart," Nicky says, and _he crosses himself_. His face is perfectly neutral but that was a _sarcastic religious gesture what the—_

Nile huffs and tugs the blanket over her head. Having big brothers is the _worst_.

* * *

Copley arrives on Tuesday, laden with canned pumpkin, canned cranberry sauce, an enormous frozen turkey, a bag of cornmeal that was bizarrely expensive to ship from the US, and two plastic jars of French's fried onions.

Once he's unpacked and settled, he insists on taking Nile into town for the first of the several thousand fancy espresso drinks he owes her. They return to find Andy and Nicky out back setting up the smoker.

Joe's made them a simple tajine for tonight's dinner. Tomorrow they'll start cooking for the feast.

One of the first orders of business on Wednesday: cornbread, so it can cool completely before getting diced up for dressing. Nile teaches Andy how to make cornbread in a cast iron skillet like her grandmother taught her. Nile's mom used to make it in the same cast iron she also used for homemade deep dish, something she used to do as a treat when Nile or Indy did especially well in school. This cast iron gets used for shakshuka all the damn time, and it's not the same, but it's its own kind of good.

Joe had encouraged her to cook whatever she wanted, even if that meant dishes he couldn't eat, but Nile's part of the third generation of Chicago Freemans to have lots of Muslim friends and neighbors. Long ago her family collards recipe switched out the ham hock for a smoked turkey neck.

This will be the first year she smokes the turkey neck herself, and the whole turkey while she's at it. If it burns, it burns — they will have plenty of food thanks to the _Eyes Only Mac-and-Cheese Bake Off of 2019_.

If you'd told Nile back in March that the man who had Andy's blood on his carpet and the team's secrets all over his walls would soon be the kind of _friend_ who could talk her into this, she would've stabbed you. But as it stands now she can't wait for Thursday at 1300 sharp when the competition begins.

Nile's mac & cheese is her mom's classic recipe. Mustard, paprika, secret ingredient that she may or may not have been able to source locally and no she is not divulging that information. This is of course where the French's fried onions come in.

Copley's mac & cheese is bright yellow like out of a Kraft box and sends Nile doubling over laughing. She about drops her fork when she tastes it though — "Is there _Jamaican curry_ in this mac & cheese?"

The crinkles around Copley's eyes go soft as he explains the recipe. Half bechamel cheese sauce, half chicken broth seasoned with what he describes as "a family blend heavy on turmeric and ginger" and may or may not be Tesco's store brand curry powder.

Nicky is allowed to participate only on the condition that his pasty Italian ass — _your pasty Genovan ass, fine, you doofus_ — accepts that he will not win. He makes pasta from scratch, rustic wide noodles with olive oil and roasted root vegetables and shaved Parmesan. It is not mac & cheese, but it is delicious.

Joe makes couscous from scratch and steams it above stewed chicken with harissa and olives and vegetables. It is also not mac & cheese and it is _magical_.

Andy is exceptionally talented at many things, but she's always been utilitarian about food, so she just picks up a bag of pitas at the market. It frees up her morning to sharpen her carving knife.

The turkey does not burn, and it's good but not quite good enough to be worth the engineering project that was keeping the smoker at the right temperature for 8 hours. The collards, though? _Holy shit, the collards._ Part-way through her first of three servings Nile exclaims, "I feel God in these collards tonight," knowing she'll have to pull up Know Your Meme to wipe the confused looks off their faces, and she doesn't even care.

The cornbread dressing is so good with the local sausage Nicky recommended. The garlic mashed potatoes are garlicky. The cranberry sauce sits there in its little dish like the decoration it is — Nile thinks she's the only one who touches it.

There is pumpkin pie. There are dozens of British chocolate bars that seem to be some kind of in-joke between Copley and Andy. And of course, there is baklava.

Who won the _Eyes Only Mac-and-Cheese Bake Off of 2019_ , you ask? They'd tell you, but they'd have to kill you, of course.

(It's Nile.)

"Has my darling cousin decided on her name yet?" Copley asks as they're lounging that evening between rounds of dessert.

"What is this?" asks Nicky.

"My cover story for London," Nile says. "I'm going to be Copley's cousin taking a gap year from my power suit boss bitch career to learn languages before going back to Harvard for my MBA."

"And there's no way to ensure classroom language immersion programs wouldn't be full of military personnel who might recognize her or ask unwanted questions, so I'm going to set her up with private tutors," Copley says.

Nile's grin is blinding as she reaches for another slice of pumpkin pie. "I'm going to eat so much good food cooked by so many immigrant aunties and it's going to be awesome."

Nicky perks up at that. "If you meet Nadiya Hussein will you tell her she's my hero?"

"Yes, Nicky, I will absolutely do that when I meet an international celebrity on my spy assignment," she says, rolling her eyes.

"But picking your first fake name, kibdii!" Joe says. "What are you thinking?"

"I made an annotated list of all the world's rivers as a starting point, and I'm— heh, I'm swimming in options." She pauses for laughter. Andy throws a piece of pie crust at her.

" _Anyway_ ," Nile says. "All the obvious river names can wait for later — Niagara, Zambezi, Danube, Loire, Blue — or they can wait until _never_ , for example you are never calling me anything awful like Mississippi or Arkansas or Snake. My brother's name is Indus, so I will not be going by that for at very least as long as you live," she says, pointing to Copley, who smiles.

She looks to Andy, and says quietly, "I'd like to use the last name Andrews, if that's ok with you?"

Andy looks stunned. She snorts, and then she's standing up and pulling Nile into a hug.

Once they've settled, Nile says, "Ok, y'all want to hear my short list?" She gets a resounding yes, and she pulls out of her pocket the note she'd written herself with her favorite names. "Zari, Jasmine, Lena, Pearl, Chloe, Jade, Olive, Valerie — what do y'all think?"

* * *

The next six weeks are an absolute blur. It's like she blinked at that Thanksgiving table and the next thing she knew she's in London signing a lease under the name Lena Andrews.

She and Nicky had gone out to gather greenery for a makeshift Christmas tree when Nile noticed movement over Nicky's shoulder. They barely had time to reach for their guns before a woman in a stunning red coat was stepping into view.

"You're her," Nile had said. Beside her Nicky had fallen to his knees.

There was crying and some shouting and only one stab wound, and then they were back at the safehouse and there was a lot more shouting but Nile was heartened and relieved to find most of it was _happy shouting_.

Nile learned more about Andy that day than she had all year.

Sometimes things work out like God has answered a prayer, and the day Nile leaves for London, Andy gets on a train with Quỳnh. A passenger train with first-class tickets to a very ritzy resort on the Caspian Sea.

* * *

The apartment is tiny, a glorified studio. The living room fits a couch and a small table with two chairs, and the bedroom has a doorway but no door. It was probably a bigger apartment's sunroom once upon a time before a developer carved up the building into smaller units.

Booker doesn't exactly plan to have anyone over to his new place. This will do fine, and if anyone does end up popping by, it won't conflict with his cover as a broke PhD student.

Inside a week the apartment is an absolute chaos of books. Two bookcases overflow, and that beautiful over-large doorway to his not-really-a-full-bedroom has stacks of books tottering up from the floor all around it.

The only book that gets pride of place on top of his dresser, next to his ever-changing collection of sunglasses, is his battered copy of Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma.

* * *

Nile's having a good day so far. Introducing herself as Lena Andrews doesn't feel like a lie so much as a mission parameter, and her mission is to get her head around the idea that she will probably still be alive _two thousand years from now_.

The first historical event she has any real memory of is Y2K. Today at the gym it passed through her mind, she's a child of the ‘90s like all those computers, what if she has the Y2K virus and when she turns two thousand years old she'll reboot and her internal clock will put her back at year zero?

Suddenly she was giggling through her set of shoulder presses and giving zero fucks about any weird looks from the meatheads around her.

Oh, and Greece was _beautiful_ but she's missed having access to free weights. It feels good to realize that's not just the Corps — this addiction to working out is all her.

This afternoon is her first meeting with Copley, and then tonight she starts language tutoring. Copley's sold the palatial suburban estate and moved into a (still somewhat palatial) terraced house in a posh neighborhood with lots of transit options. Nile is here to learn languages and get intel on shady corporations, not try to drive on the wrong side of the road, thanks.

It's an uneventful Tube ride to Copley's that she mostly spends people watching. It does and doesn't remind her of home — way more white people, for one thing. She does see some beautiful natural hairstyles though, which reminds her it's time to get salon recommendations and treat herself to a new style that's a workout for someone else's arms.

She might not get blood in her hair again for _months_ , the possibilities are near-endless. She might end up going to the gym every day here, and later this month she's starting fencing, so no point in wasting time and money on anything sweat would ruin. But not having to worry about sand or viscera in her hair? Bless.

She's so excited for fencing. As she walks up the steps to Copley's new house, he's in his newly redone _home conference room_ , the nerd, reorganizing his stack of dossiers, and she's thinking about how she is so going to kick Nicky and Joe's asses the next time she sees them.

She and Copley review the game plan for if someone recognizes her, they practice her cover story, and then they get into the day's intel review. It's just like their video meetings except now there's pastries.

When she's gathering her things to leave, Copley gets a serious look on his face. "What's up?" she asks.

"Ah—" he starts. He rubs a hand across his jaw, rests it against his neck. "When my wife died, the grief counselor advised me to say yes to things. ‘Go where they invite you,' she'd say. I didn't quite manage that, clearly, but it's likely very good advice. Maybe you will take the advice I could not?"

Nile nods. "Yeah," she says. She doesn't say out loud that she doesn't exactly have many people around inviting her to things, but then again, she's about to get back on the Tube and meet one of her new tutors.

She hugs Copley before she leaves.

Say yes to things. She can do that even when nobody's around to issue her invitations.

* * *

Nile is gonna invite her damn self to just an _enormous_ mocha to get her through this afternoon.

At least French uses the alphabet she already knows. Her Mandarin tutor says they're not going to worry about writing at all for at least a month. But that still leaves _three_ different alphabets — no, not alphabets. An alphabet, an abjad, and an abugida. Because of course the world's most-spoken languages all use just completely different writing systems.

Like, human ingenuity is beautiful and all, but her brain hurts.

She knows the Cyrillic letter that looks like New Hampshire is D, and she memorized a few Pashto words like pictograms and the Persian script is mostly Arabic.

But she has absolutely no idea where to start on Devanagari. Well, where to start is in this workbook right in front of her. Can't she just appreciate Hindi script as art? It really is stunning.

Yeah, she's starting with Cyrillic.

A little while into her neo-first-grader attempts at tracing the Russian alphabet, she glances up from her workbook when the coffee shop's bell jangles. Is that—?

Booker.

He looks good. Healthy. Not covered in blood, at least.

He looks like he has no idea what to do. He's gaping at her like a fish, and he's still holding the damn door open.

Nile makes a decision.

"Hey, fancy running into you here!" she shouts over at him, and she waves him over to her table. She telegraphs to the rest of the coffee shop that she's greeting an old friend, and once he's blinked a few more times and remembered how to walk, he's in front of her and she's leaning in for a hug. "Hi. Is this ok, can I hug you?" she whispers.

"Ah— oui, yes," he whispers back, so she hugs him.

As she pulls back, she says for any listening ears, "It's been too long!" Going by a fake name is about the extent of her spy work for the time being, and it's not like they're fugitives — she's not sure why she's playing up the part like this. "Sit! You got a minute? Join me!"

She finds she really does want him to sit down and hang out with her though.

He looks at her like he's making sure she's sure. He must see what he needed to see, because he smiles a little as he takes off his coat and hangs it on the chair opposite hers. "I'm going to get a coffee," he says. "Do you want anything?"

She holds up her really hilariously large cup and shakes her head. He smiles a little. "Ok," he says. "I'll be right back."

Nile finds herself smiling into her workbook.

She's done a few rounds of tracing and moved on to freehand drawing the characters by the time Booker is sitting down across from her with a very large coffee of his own.

"Hi," he says. "Or should I say Здравствуйте?"

She laughs. "Hi." She puts her pencil in the workbook and closes it. Now that he's sitting down and nobody's paying attention to them, she lets herself talk to him like a normal person. "I figured the world's too small for us to not run into each other for a hundred years. It's good to see you, Booker. You look good."

He smiles shyly over his coffee cup. "It's good to see you too. What brings you to London?"

Nile gestures at her stack of language workbooks. "I'm spending a year in language hell before I go back to Harvard for my MBA. You remember James Copley, my cousin?" She quirks her eyebrow and he snorts. "He set me up with tutors. French, Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Russian. You're helping me procrastinate an afternoon of my brain melting out my ears, so thank you for that."

"Glad to be of service," he says. "You're living here for the year?"

"Yeah, my apartment's about a mile that way, just moved in a few weeks ago. What brings you here?"

She's not quite sure what to call the look on his face. "I, uh, I live here too."

A surprised laugh punches out of her. "No shit?"

"Small world," he says into his coffee. It takes him a minute to make eye contact with her again, and if she were in his position she'd be feeling all kinds of things — she can wait, let him figure out what he wants to say.

He takes a few sips of his coffee before he looks up at her again. "I started a PhD program last week," he says quietly. "Trauma studies. I, ah, this may not be the time or place, so please stop me, but I'm very sorry for what I put you through."

Her hand stills where she'd been fiddling with the corner of her workbook. She sits back and really looks at him. He's holding himself differently than he did on the back porch of that bar last spring — there's tension in his shoulders, but he's not hunched the same way.

"Thank you," she says. "That's probably all we should say here, but I really appreciate that."

He nods. His shoulders are still tense but it doesn't look like he's holding his breath anymore.

"What classes are you taking?" she asks. "What homework am I saving _you_ from right now?"

Booker sets his leather messenger bag on the table and slides out a small stack of books. Night by Elie Wiesel, Maus by Art Spiegelman, and The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

"I wouldn't wish the Russian language on anyone, but my homework today is for a class called Bodies Process the Holocaust. We're analyzing first-person accounts of genocide with a somatic lens."

"Damn," she says.

He nods as he puts the books back in his bag. "My other classes this semester are Memoir from the Margins, Womanist Classics, Neurobiology of Trauma, and Decolonizing Yoga. I—" and he pauses. "I can't exactly be honest with a therapist, but getting drunk for a century wasn't going to make me any less miserable to be around." Suddenly he looks up. "Did— did Quỳnh—?"

"She came home," Nile says, and she can't help smiling. "She said you helped her, so thank you for that. She's a mess, but she's ok."

They both look down at their cups.

"You look good," Nile says after a while, leaning over to poke him in the shoulder. "The Indiana Jones thing is working for you."

He laughs loudly at that, and then seems to overthink it or something because he's ducking his head. Are his ears turning red?

"I'm told," he says, "that the number one way you do not want to dress if you're a white man studying what I'm studying is Middle-Aged Professor Who Fucks Undergrads. So no blazers with elbow patches or cable knit sweaters, alas."

"Oh, and Harrison Ford is _not_ that?" she says. Once it comes out of her mouth she cringes a little, hoping it sounded teasing and not, well, something else. What the hell, girl?

He's blushing bright red. "I spend most of my time in track suits like a football hooligan, but I have a meeting later, so a shirt with buttons it is. Anyway, how are you spending your time outside of becoming a polyglot?"

Yeah, she was probably just gonna keep digging herself in deeper holes if she kept asking about him. She was _not_ prepared to make conversation with anybody who isn't a stranger today. She was _definitely_ not prepared to see Booker 99 years ahead of schedule.

"The idea is to figure that out," she says. "My whole life is different now, and I've got a lot of it ahead of me, how do I want to spend my time? I'm gonna take the year to try some things, see what feels right. The— uh, the place I was living last fall didn't have a gym, and it turns out I've missed having regular access to a weight room, so that's something I know about myself now. Oh! I'm gonna start fencing classes!"

He matches her grin. "That's great! I have no doubt you'll be terrifying in a matter of weeks."

He seems committed to ignoring the almost-mention of her last living situation, which is probably for the best.

"I'm always terrifying when I want to be, thank you!" she says, because this year is about trying things, and this teasing vibe with Booker feels right. "I'm also gonna take some art classes because I finally have the time and the cash for good supplies. Later this week I start figure drawing, next month pastels."

"That's great," he says again. "I'm really happy for you."

They're both coming up short on what to say next. Booker glances at his watch and finds he does actually need to get going, so he makes his excuses and stands up to leave.

"This was really nice," Nile says. "I'm glad we ran into each other." She thinks about getting up to hug him, but he's already stepping away.

"Perhaps I'll see you around," he says with a little smile as he slings the strap of his messenger bag across his shoulder. He gives her a dorky little wave and then he's turned around and out the door.

"Bye," she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Copley makes a crack about our perception of time speeding up as we age, [which is a real thing](https://qz.com/1516804/physics-explains-why-time-passes-faster-as-you-age/) that I might have to meta about because it has some interesting implications for our elderly friends.
> 
> I've randomly decided that Andy would be super into this British candy bar I've never had, the [Galaxy Ripple](https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/04/british-candy-bars-uk-chocolates-different-than-american-slideshow.html#show-155105). UK readers please weigh in!
> 
> The tajine Joe makes them a few days before their fucked-up-holiday feast is a Tunisian tajine, a crustless baked egg custard with meat and veggies, yum! Joe making couscous by hand is inspired by [this Tumblr post](https://hottopicmonk.tumblr.com/post/626903081665331200/couscous-amazigh-%E2%B5%99%E2%B5%89%E2%B4%BD%E2%B5%99%E2%B5%93-seksu-is-a-north).
> 
> I've never smoked a turkey but [it sounds fun](https://heygrillhey.com/smoked-turkey/)!
> 
> I'm not Black and I did a bunch of research on potential Freeman family Thanksgiving traditions but if I'm out of line in any way with this depiction please tell me.
> 
> Copley's curry mac & cheese is inspired by a real recipe I've eaten and IT IS DELICIOUS, 12/10 strongly recommend
> 
> Shout-out to my friend's very wise mother for the "go where they invite you" advice.
> 
> I've come up with partial syllabi for Booker's grad school classes, but they hilariously scream "an American Jew who was in undergrad in the 2000s devised this reading list" and that's... probably not who's teaching Booker's classes at an unnamed university in London. I stand by Bodies Process the Holocaust though, I would take that class if it existed. The Body Keeps the Score is *chef's kiss* if you've experienced any kind of traumatic event, especially if you've experienced trauma that still affects your day-to-day life. It was life-changing for me, it's about to be for Booker, and maybe it'll help you too.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings for this chapter.

Nile likes all of her language tutors, but Fatou is quickly becoming her favorite.

Nile took a few semesters of French back when she tried community college before enlisting, and she could probably do with more classroom training in conjugations and syntax. Shooting the shit with Fatou and her family is so much more fun.

They meet on Monday nights for dinner and French lessons/conversation, Wednesday afternoons for Arabic. Nile's already starting to pick up bits of Wolof here and there as well, and she suspects that cooking lessons will also be involved before too much longer. Senegalese food is _the best_.

Family dinner with Fatou, her husband, and whoever else happens to be around that night? It aches, but in that same worth-it way that pushups ache. "I'm going to be so good at hugging my friends," Nile thinks to herself, more bitter than funny, when a fourth Monday night in a row finds her curled up on her couch crying. Coming "home" to the only place she's ever lived alone hits different when she's coming back from a night at Fatou's.

It's easier not to be heartsick for the kitchen table in Chicago she can never return to, Nile finds, when she lets herself really be in the moment at Fatou's. Family dinner is a chaos of people coming in and out of the apartment, and it's dishes of rice, fish, goat, and vegetables that only the rarest of midwesterners would call a casserole. The way they blend French, Arabic, Wolof, and the kind of British English that's all, " _th?_ nevah met ‘im," makes her use all of her brain to keep track, and it makes her feel warm for her new family whose linguistic gymnastics she's on her way to actually being able to follow.

Fatou and Moustapha's older daughter, Jama, is probably only a few years older than Nile, but those two little kids of hers make for a very different life. Nile has more in common with Malik, the nephew who's just finished _uni_ (Nile is going to be giggling about British English for a while, ok) and is still figuring some things out.

The salon Malik recommends is the one she ends up going to, and she is _loving_ these goddess locs. 

Malik is a rapper — "amateur," Jama says, tugging on one of his immaculate curls — and he's been talking nonstop about his upcoming show. Nile had promised to be there, but she'd promised in French and it turns out to be very fun to wind him up by pretending she didn't know what she was agreeing to.

A Saturday night at a club wasn't really her thing, before. She doubts that's going to change, but what the hell, it could be fun, maybe she'll make some new friends. Go where they invite you, right?

* * *

Nile feels like hot shit walking into the pub. She's wearing a hunter green shirt dress with big gold buttons that match the gold toecaps on her boots, and she's pinned up her locs on one side so they cascade dramatically down the other side of her face. She doesn't need all the appreciative glances she's getting, but she will gladly take them.

As she makes her way to the bar she's paying more attention to the chalk board beer list than the people around her. Maybe Lena Andrews is about to become a craft beer snob? She hasn't decided yet.

It takes her a few heartbeats to realize that the person she's now standing next to at the bar is Booker.

"Hey!" she says, and it comes out bubblier than maybe she meant, but it feels good to see a familiar face.

"Bonsoir," he says, and he's smirking but there's an uncertainty in his eyes.

"Small town, huh?" She laughs a little. "I was just thinking about—"

The bartender interrupts with a raised eyebrow, and Booker gestures to Nile to make her order first. She was just about to say that she doesn't know shit about beer, so she takes a stab in the dark and orders an oatmeal stout.

Booker orders a kombucha, which Nile takes note of but is careful not to let show on her face.

Nile hands over her credit card with an "I got you" to Booker, and when they have their drinks in hand she tilts her head over to a nearby table. "Join me?"

She takes a sip of her beer before it can slosh over the side. It's a pleasant surprise. She had a Guinness once a million years ago — _huh, that expression hits different now_ — but this is better, a little like a frappuccino without so much sugar. All this causes her to miss Booker tying himself into knots to stop himself from staring at her.

"So what brings you here?" she asks over her shoulder as she reaches the table and sets down her beer.

It's a round high-top with no chairs, and he could stand right next to her, easier to hear each other, but that feels not quite right. Too presumptuous. He feels especially aware of his shoulders as he steps up to the table across from her.

"I read something," he says, "about live music making people feel connected to the strangers around them. Thought I'd give it a try, and it turns out I like modern popular music a lot more now than I did the last time I tried to keep up with it." He smiles at her, head tilting a little in the hopes he won't appear quite so tall. "I go to a lot of shows these days. What about you?"

"That's great," Nile tells him with a big smile. This beer is great, this pub is great, her shoes are great, running into someone she knows is great — she feels keyed up, like her skin is vibrating with the potential for this to be a really fun night.

"My friend Malik is performing tonight," she says, and she could probably be looking for him to wish him luck before his set starts, but she keeps her eyes on Booker. "His aunt is my French and Arabic tutor, Fatou. She's so great, Book, she's got me back to conversational after not speaking any French for almost 5 years! Malik's always hanging around because she's such a good cook, she loves feeding people, and he's been talking up his show for weeks, and it's not like I've got a packed social calendar these days. So I thought I'd check it out!"

Her smile is blinding.

He asks her more about her studies, and they end up chatting in French for a while. The way her hair falls across the side of her face is mesmerizing, all the more so when she ducks her head at his gentle teasing over her very work-in-progress French accent.

The pub is starting to get louder as the crowd fills in before the show starts. "Oh, hey," she says in English, and she puts a hand on his forearm without thinking about it. "They know me as Lena here, Lena Andrews."

Booker wonders what Andy must think of that. He knows what he thinks of it, and he hopes the full intensity of his amazement at Nile goddamn Freeman isn't showing on his face. She seems to be having fun, and she seems not to mind him being there, and he doesn't want to do anything to disturb that.

Nile gets them a second round before the show starts and they head over closer to the stage so she can throw Malik a wave as he sets up. She and Booker end up standing next to each other for the whole set.

"Lena, you made it!" Malik calls over to her as he makes his way through the crowd during the break between his set and the next performer.

"Hey!" she calls back. "Y'all were great!" she says once he reaches them, and she pulls him into a quick hug.

"This is the American?" asks Malik's friend and DJ collaborator.

She beams. "Guilty as charged. I'm Lena."

"Adedayo," he says, grinning. "Pleasure to meet you."

She gestures to Booker. "I ran into an old friend — hey, do you still go by that nickname?"

It's a little thing, but it hits him just how good Nile is going to be at espionage.

"Oui, call me Booker," he says, and goes to shake hands with the handsome young men he should probably leave Nile to spend the rest of her evening with. But she still seems happy enough to have him there, so he makes no move to leave.

"Malik is Fatou's nephew," Nile says. "I was just telling Booker here what an amazing cook your aunt is! It's gonna break my heart to have to move back to Boston after how y'all spoil me!"

Malik clutches at his heart, overdramatic. "Don't go talking about leaving us already!" He spots a few people waving to him from amid the crowd and gestures for them to come over. "You can't just hang out in my auntie's kitchen all year, let me introduce you to the crew."

Nile finds herself a welcomed new addition to a growing clump of Malik's friends. It's fun, the attention that comes with being new in town, and it's funny watching a few of them try clumsily flirting with her. It's very funny to watch Malik completely lose any game he might have ever had in his entire life when he's around a very pretty girl named Gwen.

But she can't help thinking how _young_ they all are. She's only got a few years on them, but if anything ages you quick it's the US Marine Corps. She says as much to Booker, who gives her a look she's not quite sure how to describe. That vibrating feeling in her skin is back.

The next performer is fine but not that great, and the expanding bubble of people around Malik and Adedayo migrates away from the stage and towards the bar so as not to be rude while they continue to chat.

She returns to the gaggle with a fresh glass of water and sees Booker deep in conversation with two people she remembers meeting but whose names she can't remember. They're all laughing, then Booker says something that has the other two looking at Booker like he just landed in this pub from another planet. It doesn't look like he said anything offensive, just clueless, probably a miscalculated attempt at slang.

"Oh don't mind Booker, he's from the Himbeaux region of France," she says, stepping into their circle. Without really thinking about it she reaches up to pat him on the shoulder, and he's not _that_ much taller than her but somehow her palm ends up closer to his pec than his shoulder.

She turns quickly back to the other two and asks, "remind me of y'all's names again?" before she can overthink it. She doesn't see the deer in headlights look on his face.

Later, when applause is fading after the last performance of the night and she's said goodbye to Malik and Adedayo and some of the others, she sets her empty drink glass on the nearest table and shuffles over to playfully elbow Booker in the side. "Hey, when you're ready to go, walk out with me?"

His eyebrows go up a little, but he nods.

Nile makes small talk for a few blocks until she no longer feels like they're fish swimming upstream with everyone else heading from the pub to the Tube station. Until she's worked herself up to saying what she's decided to say.

"I get why Andy, Joe, and Nicky decided on the exile and I want to respect that they need space from you. But what I need from you is an apology, which you already gave me the first part of, and earning my trust that you're not going to pull shit like that again, which a hundred years of radio silence is not going to accomplish. And honestly, I'm kinda lonely here but tonight was really fun and I don't want to have to turn down a new friend. So, you wanna be my friend, Booker?"

She says all that with her eyes ahead of her, like it's easier to get out if she's not watching his reaction. She doesn't know why she feels so nervous all of a sudden.

"I'll be your friend, ma cherie," he says in a quiet rumble beside her.

She looks over at him and he meets her eyes with a little smile.

He tells her about some of the other shows he's been to recently as they walk to the station. Once they board, he pulls out his phone and carefully types Lena Andrews into a new contact in his phone before handing it to her for the number. She texts herself then pulls out her own phone and creates a new contact with a string of book emojis. This time she does go in for a hug before he gets off the train two stops before hers.

* * *

Nile pulls out her phone the next morning on her train ride to the church she's checking out this week, and she finds Booker's sent her a photo and a string of emojis. It's his apology.

His loopy handwriting covers an entire page of old-fashioned lined paper. He doesn't mention anything that would be incriminating if another Merrick type saw it, but he's thorough. She wonders if he was up all night writing this. Maybe he's had it written for months and thought he'd have to wait 100 years to give it to her.

She texts back, "I accept your apology, mon ami 🌱✌🏿" Then she opens up her Devanagari script app and lets her brain zone out into tracing the shapes until it's her stop.

* * *

It's a cold but beautiful afternoon to spend curled up by the window, tucked under a blanket except one hand to hold her mug of tea and occasionally poke at her laptop. Sundays aren't homework days when Nile can help it. Her language workbooks and all the dossiers and news clips for her ongoing save-the-world project with Copley sit across the room or in collapsed tabs where they will stay until the new week begins.

Today is for catching up on memes.

A few hours of scrolling later, she comes across something that makes her laugh so loud she's pretty sure it set off her neighbor's dog.

And then she laughs again, because she remembers she has a friend she can text it to.

 **Nile:** Saw this and thought of you <https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/633350313144942592/just-towel-thoughts-thevaudevilledemon>

Movement outside her window catches her eye — the neighbor is taking her dog for a walk, and the scruffy little thing is diligently investigating every crack in the sidewalk, it's adorable.

Her phone buzzes a few minutes later.

 **Booker:** These days I'm a strictly silly putty guy, but in general, <https://giphy.com/gifs/3o7aCRloybJlXpNjSU>

Nile grins.

 **Nile:** How hard do you think they'd expel me from sculpture class if I insisted that c4 is my true medium?

 **Booker:** They wouldn't dare deny the world such artistic innovation!

Oh, he's an exclamation-point texter, is he? She lets the conversation rest there, but she finds herself smiling off and on for the rest of the night.

* * *

"So how long have you been dating that man from Himbeaux?" is the first thing Malik says to her the next night at dinner.

"What?" she says. "No! Booker's a friend. Omg, no." She's barely set down her bag and she hasn't even taken her coat off yet. She figured Malik might assume something was going on, she'd stuck to Booker like glue all night, but she wasn't ready to be grilled about it.

Fatou pokes her head out from the kitchen. "What is this? There is a man?"

"This white Frenchman," Malik says. "Auntie, he called her ma biscotte by accident and then turned red as a beetroot!"

Fatou cackles in that way of older women who give absolutely no fucks about what other people think of them. "Oh ma belle, that boy likes you," she says before disappearing back into the kitchen to retrieve dinner.

"What? No, it's not like that, he's just old-fashioned," Nile says. She's finally unencumbered of her cold-weather gear and as she settles in at the table she decides she needs a change of tactic. "Anyway how about Malik's fan club over here? Anybody from that night _you_ want to tell your auntie about?"

The look on Malik's face is priceless. Moustapha laughs as Fatou lovingly lays into their nephew for not keeping them apprised of important details. It's a rapid-fire mishmash of languages that Nile understands maybe half of.

"I didn't catch all that," Nile says, gesturing between them. She smirks. "But I'll do recon for you at his next show."

Yes, Nile asked her tutor how to say "recon" in French and Arabic. She is who she is.

"And where is this Himbeaux?" Fatou says. "I have not heard of it, is it in Belgium?"

* * *

That night when she gets home to her empty apartment — _flat_ , she'll get the hang of this eventually — she finds it doesn't make her feel quite so lonely.

She feels her phone buzz.

 **Malik:** girl if you tell my auntie anything about Gwen I'll encourage her to invite your Frenchman over for dinner, there's no way you're fluent enough yet to save yourself from that conversation 💁🏿♂️ 

**Nile:** you wouldn't dare

 **Malik:** <https://worddevourer.tumblr.com/post/190136958323/actually-hes-only-a-himbo-if-hes-from-the>

**Nile:** 🤦🏿♀️🤦🏿♀️🤦🏿♀️

* * *

Later that week, the train Nile is on stops abruptly between stations. Somehow she still has cell service in the tunnel — bless you, Copley — so when the announcer says they might be stuck there for a while, she pulls up the Wikipedia for the London Underground. Confirmed, this system is just as old and wrecked as the El.

She takes a picture of the view outside the nearest train window, ominously flickering lights and a scurrying rat and clearly legible "Do Not Enter" signs that should not be readable because the train should not be stopped randomly between stations like this. Then she pulls up her group thread with Andy, Joe, and Nicky.

 **Nile:** What were y'all so busy with in 1890 that you couldn't have held a gun to these fools' heads and made them make public transit that works better?

She thinks about it, and then she sends the same photo and caption to Booker. It'll be several hours before any of the others respond, but Booker texts back in less than a minute.

 **Booker:** You have service down there? I've been slacking, maybe your cousin could hook me up

They text back and forth for — damn, it's been 15 minutes, she realizes as the train finally starts moving again.

 **Nile:** have you seen Star Wars?

 **Booker:** Of course! Ahsoka Tano is my hero

 **Nile:** strong choice  
**Nile:** tag yourself I'm Leia <https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/634642947172876288/facts-only>

**Booker:** Are you... asking someone who's been exiled... to tag themself... Solo?

Nile freezes. And then she bursts out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Booker and Nile hang out on purpose!
> 
> My fancast for Malik is kxdsheldy, one of the many YouTubers I became obsessed with in my quest to educate myself about Nile's hair. [These curls, y'all!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MC9LQX3_8U)
> 
> Adedayo is John Boyega's middle name. I 100% have his voice in my head when I think about how Malik and his friends might talk. (If you want to listen to John Boyega's beautiful voice and also cry please watch [this video where he talks about his impromptu speech at a Black Lives Matter protest in London this summer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYx77l6BqgA).)
> 
> Nile's dress for her big night out is inspired by [this Fenty dress from Kiki Layne's backyard Zoom press tour](https://tomandlorenzo.com/2020/07/werq-from-home-kiki-layne-puts-in-the-effort-on-the-old-guard-virtual-press-tour-part-2/). SHE IS SO PRETTY HOLY SHIT
> 
> The Tube stopping for a long time between stations is inspired by _a real thing the DC Metro does all the goddamn time_ , or at least did pre-pandemic when I actually took the Metro. I don't know if London's public transit system, which is over 80 years older than my city's, also does this.
> 
> A very hearty thank-you to [highlightcity_159](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlightcity_159/pseuds/highlightcity_159) for educating me about French endearments. Ma biscotte means my biscuit (a British biscuit, what Americans would call a cookie) and doesn't necessarily on its own mean the person using it has a crush on the person it refers to, but when Booker uses it and then immediately blushes in a fic tagged Booker/Nile that is exactly what it means. Ma belle means my pretty and is also a common endearment and my favorite for Fatou to call Nile. I don't know where Fatou came from, she just materialized in my head, but I love her and I hope you enjoy her too.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Pervasive references to many of the world's scariest and most difficult problems. Nothing detailed about those problems, but we see characters feel significant distress about the overwhelming and potentially futile nature of trying to make the world a less painful and violent place.
>   * Nile continues to Think Like a Marine TM. Character growth takes time.
>   * Depiction of a character having trouble eating because of emotional turmoil. It's not graphic and not a full-blown eating disorder but may be tough for some readers. There's a brief reference to the super harmful idea that eating disorders are a "white thing" and the idea is presented in the fic as harmful and not true.
> 


The meeting starts off so well.

Nile makes a joke about having Copley investigate Paul Rudd as a potential immortal, which a text from Booker may or may not have instigated.

Copley responds by offering her his laptop opened to a folder full of, what the _fuck_ , actual proof that Paul Rudd is not an immortal. Because this nerd had already thought of it.

Then he says, "Remember the idea you mentioned about weapons that disable for the duration of an engagement but leave no lasting damage?"

She does remember that. From last June.

"I think I have a lead for you," he says. "My friend Barbara is going to send someone to meet with you. It may not be until the spring, but as you like to say, we have time."

In the grand scheme of Nile's life now, 8 months to get a concrete lead on a science fiction weapon is probably a quick turn-around.

Then they get down to brass tacks, and everything goes to shit.

The team is visiting in a few weeks to start making decisions and a game plan for their new, not-whack-a-mole strategy. It's not like they need to prepare for the visit how it sounds like Copley had to prepare for meetings with his CIA bosses — that shit makes Nile so grateful she never made it past Corporal, having to present information to your bosses in such a way that they'll make the decision you want while thinking it was their idea all along sounds so exhausting. They just have to get their gallons of intel organized into pint glasses, or whatever metaphoric bite-size-ifying that'll work for the sheer volume of information she needs to present to her team.

Everything goes to shit because, when it comes down to it, Nile leads an army whose members she can count on her fingers, the clock is ticking on climate change, and immortal or no there's only so much they can do.

She's a Marine, not a political scientist. Intro to International Relations in community college did not fucking prepare her to play five-dimensional chess with the lives of all current and future human beings at stake.

"The reality is," Copley is saying, "you will need to choose a top priority." Nile looks up from where she's been doodling her feelings. "You will need to choose which causes of death and suffering are not a priority. And you will need to prepare yourself for the eventuality that action in service of your priority may exacerbate other causes of death and suffering."

"So you're saying I have to choose between climate change, nuclear weapons, poverty, and white supremacy?"

"Not necessarily. You could choose to focus your energy on pressuring elected officials or corporations or influencers of public opinion. Or you could narrow your window of responsibility not by issue or decision maker but by tactic."

Nile presses her fingers into her closed eyelids. Her hands feel clammy against her cheeks. "I might live for 5,000 years but all of a sudden I feel like I can't afford to spend this year on vacation learning languages. What the fuck were we even doing all of last year."

"You're still human, Nile."

"But with great power comes great responsibility."

"True."

They're both quiet for a while.

"Ok," she says. "Say we put guns to the heads of different shitty decision makers twice a week for a decade, how many terrible things can we stop? Let's assume for now that all the privacy stuff is manageable, just ballpark, 52 weeks times ten times two is— well, let's say we take 2 weeks off on average, that's— shit, 1,000 ops sounds like a lot but 1,000 CEOs or politicians is nothing. Unless they're the right CEOs or politicians or mob bosses or whoever."

"So you're interested in organizing your strategy around a particular tactical approach?"

"I'll use whatever tactics work, I'd rather not take life if I don't have to, but taking one life to save thousands would be worth it."

Copley closes the folder in front of him. "I am aware of the irony in my saying this, but only an American would be this frustrated that she can't change the world by pointing a gun at it."

Nile sets her jaw.

"Let's say for a moment that we're only focusing on current causes of death. You can't point a gun at cardiovascular disease. You've made clear your team's boundary around potential cures for cancer."

He holds his hands up before her eyebrow can even lift all the way.

"My point is, poverty, white supremacy, sexual violence, even climate change are not themselves on this list," he says, pointing to [the graph projected on the whiteboard of the leading causes of death globally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate). "Some of their effects, secondary effects, indirect effects are on this list. Suicide kills more than homicide, war, and terrorism combined. You can kill human traffickers to prevent them from traumatizing people who might subsequently die of, for example, suicide, substance use disorders, HIV, or cardiovascular disease. That is a strategic direction you could choose to go in. Violence is a powerful tactic, but it is not the only available tactic, it is not necessarily the most effective tactic with every decision maker, and frankly, your fighting force is too small, and too vulnerable to public exposure, to compete with many of your potential enemies."

"Ok," Nile says. "I'm gonna get some more water, do you want anything?"

He shakes his head. She closes the conference room door with a quiet click and takes her sweet time going to the kitchen and refilling her reusable glass water bottle with the bright purple silicone sleeve.

When she comes back into the room, Copley is looking intently at his laptop, chin rested in his folded hands.

He looks up and gives her a small smile, but waits until she's settled back in her chair before he speaks. "Nile, this is far from the first time we've had a conversation like this. It's understandable that you want to maximize the good your team does for the world. But I think the most important thing we need to accomplish when we convene the team is to get honest with ourselves about what exactly is our goal and why. What exactly do you each have in mind when you refer to doing what you think is right. Only from that clarity of goal will we be able to make truly strategic decisions about which campaigns are a priority."

"So we're a we now?" she says, and she doesn't mean it as sharply as she says it, but God help her, this whole thing is testing her patience.

"You and I have been a team for some months now," Copley says. It's the youngest Nile's felt since becoming immortal, because whatever stories Andy might have of her thousands of years, it wasn't until right here in this absurd conference room in Copley's absurd bourgie terrace house that Nile's felt the loving condescension that only a mentor can provide. She lets herself quirk her lips into a small but genuine smile.

"Yeah," she says. "Ok. I'm gonna pray on all this, see if I can get some of that clarity of goal you're talking about. We have one more meeting scheduled before Andy, Joe, and Nicky get here. You're gonna figure out how to present all this shit to the team in such a way that their brains hurt a little less than mine does right now."

Copley nods.

It's the first time they end a meeting early in nearly a year of working together.

Copley insists on sending her home with a dozen scones. Nile brings eleven and a half scones to her Hindi tutor's place the next afternoon and leaves them there.

She has a hard time eating all week. This has happened sometimes over the years — intense emotions feel like they take up so much space in her body that there's no room for food. And when her father died, enjoying anything felt wrong, even something as simple as peanut butter on toast.

Nile's mother was an expert at keeping her babies alive, and she insisted on breakfast every morning now matter how heavy the grief hung in the air. Some of the church ladies would cluck that eating disorders are a white girl thing, but Nile's mom was a career public school teacher and knew better. Sometimes eating is hard for any number of reasons. But you still have to do it.

So Nile does. She forces herself to drink a protein shake every morning, and she splurges on fancy single-serving yogurts and roasted nuts just to get calories in her body until her emotions level out and she can eat normally again.

What the fuck does the UK have against peanut butter, she grumbles. She puts Nutella in her protein shake one morning but her heart is too heavy to really enjoy it.

* * *

Saturday dawns bright and cold, and Nile starts her day just like most days lately, with a trip to the gym.

Today is not like most of her days in London in that later she's meeting up with a fellow immortal.

She's not all alone here, far from it. She FaceTimes with Joe pretty regularly, and Andy and Nicky pop in sometimes. She and Malik are on a texting basis now. She met up for coffee last week with somebody she met at one of the churches she's test-drived, and she probably isn't going back to that church but Bridget was cool and maybe they'll hang out again.

For all that her skin crawls right now when she thinks of him, Copley's become a good friend. It's his job to tell her things she doesn't want to hear. Give it a week, or a year, and they'll be back to Eyes Only Mac-and-Cheese Bake Off territory.

But spending time with Booker feels different. Especially since they're hanging out on purpose today, after bumping into each other by accident, twice, in a city of nearly 9 million people.

She's New Boss. They're not gonna exile her for hanging out with the exilee. Right?

Nile spends the same amount of time picking out her outfit for today as she does for days when she has art classes or tutoring. Totally regular. She spends her train ride with the cursed Duolingo owl working on her Mandarin written vocab recognition. Cruel and unusual punishment, sure, but also totally regular these days.

Booker's already waiting for her when she walks up to the Saatchi Gallery. Her stomach clenches.

"Bonjour, Lena," he calls to her.

She hadn't realized until just now that she picked Lena out of that long list of names inspired by the world's rivers because it's the closest, phonetically, to her real name. She double-times it up the remaining steps and goes in to hug him.

Nile hasn't heard of most of the artists whose work is on display here, but that's kind of their schtick. The Portrait Gallery and the Tate were higher on her list, but the Saatchi was Booker's idea, and she is _into it_.

Booker probably suggested this museum because he probably used to get drunk with Picasso or some shit like that and doesn't want to talk about it. It doesn't matter. This shit is _amazing_.

"I live here now," she says, voice full of wonder, after only about 20 minutes inside. The way he smiles at her, she feels like he gets the layers of what she means.

They talk about how the pieces make them feel, what they notice about the technique, what they're confused about in that good way that only really interesting art can set you a little off-kilter. And they just stand near each other in silence, too. Booker occasionally weighs in with what materials he would've used to get a similar effect back in the day, and Nile had never really thought all that much about the materials science angle of art, but the more he tells her, the more she wants to learn.

It's a really nice day. Nile wants more days like it.

They're in a coffee shop down the block, resting their feet after hours walking through the gallery, when there's a quiet moment in their rehash of their favorite pieces.

"Hey," Nile says, "I should tell you so you're not caught off guard — Andy, Joe and Nicky are visiting me at the end of the month. They're staying closer to Copley's place than mine, and we'll be spending a lot of our time in that ridiculous conference room of his, but given how you and I have a tendency to run into each other, I thought I'd give you a heads up."

Booker nods. "Merci. I'd ask you to say hello to them for me, but that will probably not be welcome. I'll stick close to home while they're here so as not to disturb things." After a moment, he quirks an eyebrow. "If any of them make arrangements to run into _me_ , I'll take it for a gift."

Nile gives his shoulder a squeeze. "I hope it's not out of line for me to say, whatever you're doing in therapy and at school seems to be doing you a lot of good. I'm really happy for you."

He pats her hand where it's still resting on his shoulder, and when he goes to pick up his coffee she pulls away from him and cradles her mocha in both hands. "I'm not gonna have much free time while they're here, but text me as much as you want, I'll be very happy for the distraction," she says.

When his eyebrows draw together, she says, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't put this on you. Anyway, one of the spraypaint pieces got me thinking, have you seen Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse?"

He looks so serious. Crap. Nile worries at her fingernails.

"Ma cherie, you can talk to me about whatever you want. That movie is gorgeous, but how about you tell me why you're worried to see the family? I hope it's not anything to do with spending time with me."

"Oh it's not that!" Nile says, bumping the table with her hasty gesturing and nearly sloshing coffee all over the place.

Booker must have really good reflexes, because he grabs both their mugs off the table before any messes can get made.

"Sorry," Nile says. "Sorry. I— shit, I'm still a lot jumpier about this than I thought. It doesn't really have anything to do with Andy, Joe, or Nicky, and you're sweet to offer but I really wouldn't feel right crying on your shoulder if I was having a problem with them or something. It's—"

Booker had set their mugs back down once the table stopped shaking, and now he's pressing hers into her hands.

"You're drawing up battle plans, aren't you," he says. "I always hated that part. Choosing who you help means choosing who you don't."

"That's exactly it!" A few other cafe goers look over at them, and Nile flushes when she realizes how loud that was. Quieter, she says, "I've had Copley doing research for almost a year now so that we can come up with an overarching strategy to do as much good as we possibly can." She notices his eyebrows have shot up, so she asks, "What?"

"Mademoiselle Andrews, are you the boss now?"

She grins, brief but warm. "I am."

"I knew it," he says, and he sounds— proud? There's something in his tone she can't quite place, something that only grows as he adds, "We'll never understand why any of us were chosen, but I'm glad it was you."

"Aw Book! That's really sweet of you." She takes a long sip of her mocha.

When she sets her mug down, he makes some kind of indistinguishable but distinctly _French_ noise. Then he hands her a napkin. "It is a sign of a capable boss," he says, "to submit occasionally to the humbling experience of getting whipped cream on your nose in public."

"You jerk," she says fondly and grabs the napkin. After a little dabbing, she opens up her camera app and flips it to selfie mode. "I'd ask you if I got it all, but God help me, I've always been a little vain. Gotta make sure for myself."

He snorts. "I used to carry around a little mirror and comb in my pocket. Nothing wrong with tending to your aesthetic."

"You," she says, pointing her finger at him, "you get it!"

She sets her phone down and lets out a blustery sigh. "Ok, you promise you really don't mind if I talk about team stuff?"

"I really don't mind."

She smiles at him, but sadder than before. "Basically Copley is insisting that 'prevent as much death and suffering as possible' isn't a specific enough goal. He says we have to narrow our focus, which as you said, means choosing who we _don't_ save. It's awful but I expected it. What's really fucking with me is something else he said, and something that I'm not even sure if he meant to imply, or maybe something that I've known for a long time but just didn't want to—"

Booker is nodding along as she talks. When her pause goes on more than a few beats, he says, quiet, "Take your time."

She sighs again. "Of course I expected this wouldn't be easy, but God damn that man is judgy is shit for living in a glass house. He called me a typical American, trying to solve all the world's problems with guns. You saw the literal glass house all those years in the CIA bought him."

Nile purses her lips and Booker tilts his head in seeming agreement. She takes another gulp of coffee, sans whipped cream nose decor this time, then says, "Maybe that is what's going on here though. I think I've been avoiding thinking about it for a long time. So many of the world's problems just can't be solved with violence. I don't know how some of them can be solved at all."

"And yet we carry on," he says, heavy but not morose. He really must be busting his ass in therapy, and one of these days Nile would like to ask him more about it.

"I know I'm not God, I just — I want to do as much good as I can with this enormous power we have, but the sheer complexity of weighing every pro and con is breaking my brain." She snorts. "Maybe y'all had the right idea all along. Playing whack-a-mole with whatever merc jobs come along while we wait to volunteer in the next war is looking less and less crazy."

Booker lays his hand over hers where it's cupped around her mug. "You're such a good leader because you see what even Andy couldn't, that this family needs vision and purpose, a mission that lives on like we do. I have no fucking idea what the right answer is, but I have no doubt you will figure out something that works."

"Thank you," she says. She feels stunned. Her throat feels tight and she has no idea what her face is doing.

"If you don't mind stopping by my place," he says, "I can loan you some books that might help? No silver bullets, just might give you some new ways of considering things."

She tilts her head. "Yeah," she says after a pause. "Yeah, let's do that."

* * *

"Sébastien Guerin?" Nile reads out loud from a piece of mail she sees on Booker's kitchen table while he putters around nearby to get them both glasses of water.

"C'est moi," he says. "As much as I gave them shit for all the fake IDs for Joe Jones and Nicky Nicholson they had me make over the years, there's something about keeping your real name. Nobody'd called me Sébastien in a long time."

"Sébastien," Nile says slowly, testing out her pronunciation.

Booker's hand stutters over the water pitcher, but Nile doesn't see it. "Your accent has improved," he says.

"Thank you! You're damn right it has, where I'm from this is pronounced Suh-BASH-chin."

He snorts, she assumes in mild offense. She doesn't catch the very not-offended look that briefly crosses his face.

"Hence the battery of aunties to clean up the unwashed American. Who a goddamn CIA operative said couldn't imagine a way to help the world without shooting something."

She says it like it's a joke, but it's so baldly not that he has to fight hard to stop himself from wrapping her up in a hug. He steadies his voice enough to say, "The way you talk is beautiful. Let me find you those books I was talking about."

There's not much to his apartment, so he's acting like he just left for a different room but she can see him barely five feet away, looking through his bookcase and the stacks of books all over the floor, picking up a book and setting it back down, grabbing two more. She just stands there in his kitchen, blinking, wondering what just happened to change the vibe in the room.

She shakes herself out of it and picks up the glass of water he'd poured her.

"Ok, I think you might find these interesting," Booker says once he's found the books he had in mind. "First, Drift by Rachel Maddow," which he hands her.

"Wait, the talking head?"

"Yeah, she's a pretty entertaining writer. Not nearly as leftist as the other talking heads would have you believe, though. This book is about how big-picture US military decisions changed from World War 2 to your war in Afghanistan and why going to war can seem appealing even when it's not necessarily an effective strategy."

Nile looks at the little green plastic soldier toy on the cover.

"Second," he says, "Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks." Nile takes it from him and finds a little cartoon of a ladder on the cover. "It's about teaching, but it can apply to any kind of leadership. Basically you get better outcomes when you give up the idea of reproducing whatever norm you've inherited or otherwise controlling other people's decisions."

She's been flipping through it and it takes her a beat to realize that he's stopped talking. She looks up and he's smiling at her. He hands her one more book.

"This one I'll be especially interested to hear what you think of. Unapologetic by Charlene Carruthers. She's an activist in Chicago and she has very smart things to say about the practical experience of nonviolent organizing for things like prison abolition."

"Oh!" Nile says. "I've heard of her. This is cool — thanks, Booker."

She grips his forearm for a few seconds to let it sink in. "Thank you," she says again, and she hopes how much she means it is coming through.

* * *

"Kibdii!" Nile hears from across the park. She looks up to see Joe is doing that awkward walk-run people do when they're afraid a bus will leave without them. Or when they're delighted to see their favorite little sister for the first time in months.

"Hey!" she shouts back. She's barely gotten all her stuff into her bag — so. many. workbooks. — when he's there and he's wrapping her up in a hug and he's _picking her up_ , and she was looking forward to seeing them but now that they're here Nile suddenly feels like a missing puzzle piece has slotted into place.

She thinks back to something Booker said the other day that he learned from his somatic therapist, and it makes her grin even wider before her brain catches up with her. When Joe releases her she doesn't quite meet his eyes.

But by then Andy and Nicky have caught up and she's running over to hug them both.

After a few "good to see you"s and "looking good"s Nile realizes— wait, "Where's Quỳnh?"

Andy's smile softens, but not into anything sad. "Quỳnh's fine, she says hi. She asked me to tell you, and I quote, 'England is cancelled and I will be too busy eating much better food in much more civilized places to participate in your little planning meetings for violence.'"

Joe throws an arm around Nile's shoulders and starts to lead her back where they'd come, presumably in the direction of their short-term flat. She sees Nicky has grabbed her bag for her.

He pretends to struggle under its weight. "What do you have in here, rocks?"

"Homework," Nile says. "Half the point of learning to read Chinese and not just speak it is bench pressing the textbooks, I can't be letting my fitness slip!"

* * *

Later, after they've put everything away from their massive grocery run, they're testing out the living room furniture. The couch is very large and very squishy.

"It is so, so good to see y'all," Nile says.

"You missed us?" Nicky asks, and she throws her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder.

"Of course I missed you!" 

Joe joins in on the group hug from Nicky's other side. "We missed you too, Nile. But all this time apart means you have tales of your adventures for us! How are you liking pastels?"

"Of course you would ask her that first," Nicky teases.

"It's not like I'm going to ask her about her favorite British food," Joe says — which, fair.

Nile gets distracted from telling them about her latest tragically smudged masterpiece because someone on the couch has started a tickle fight. Andy takes the opportunity to get up and grab that bag of chocolate-covered almonds Nicky had insisted on buying, and she settles into an armchair instead of returning to her spot on the couch so she won't have to share.

Andy does eventually share, but not until she's housed half the bag. They shoot the shit for a while, trade stories about what they've seen and done and eaten since they saw each other last. Nile brags about her progress in fencing. Joe and Nicky tease Andy about her sex vacation. Andy asks Nile if she's made any friends so far. _Shit._ Nile really needs to tell them about that thing before too much longer, and that's as good an opening as any.

"Hey, uh, I need to tell y'all something you're probably not gonna like."

"What's wrong?" Joe and Nicky ask in tandem. Andy's jaw tightens.

"I'm fine, I swear. It's just—" and she takes a deep breath, lets it out. "Booker is living in London, and we ran into each other a few times and now we're kind of hanging out."

"Is he ok?" Joe asks at the same time as Andy asks, "Does he know we're here?"

Nicky has gone rigid.

"He's ok. He does know y'all are here, he's planning to stick close to his neighborhood and school so y'all don't run into each other like he and I did."

"School?" Andy asks.

"Yeah, he, uh— he should probably be the one to tell you this, but he's getting a PhD in trauma studies. Didn't think it would be right to spill all our secrets to a therapist, so—"

Nile doesn't know what else to say. It's not her place to update them about his life, and she doubts they want to hear what she thinks about Booker's progress. The truth is, she's really proud of him. He's proving that these first six months on the self-improvement train aren't a blip, that he's serious about becoming a version of himself he can live with for a long time.

"Hanging out, huh — is that all it is?" Andy asks, and Nile realizes none of them had said anything for a few minutes.

Wait, does Andy look _teasing_?

"She would know," Joe says.

"Uh, what?" Nile says.

"Huh, I guess I hadn't mentioned yet," Andy says. "Booker and I were fucking for a while around the turn of the last century."

"What?" is all she can manage. This is _so far_ out of left field and Nile thinks maybe she should fix her face but, like, _**what?**_

Andy and Joe are writing thousand-word essays to each other with their eyes — and Nile suddenly realizes that this is exactly the kind of thing she likes about hanging out with Booker. She doesn't feel like she's hopelessly inexperienced and out of the loop with him. They try, they really do, but Andy and Joe and Nicky can't help but make her feel just a little bit like an outsider sometimes.

Nile looks over to find Nicky is staring down past his feet like he can see all the way down to the Earth's core. Joe's holding his hand, rubbing soothingly with his thumb. Nicky's wrist is shaking.

Nicky seems to realize that Nile's looking at him, because he catches her eyes and gives her the smallest of smiles, then he squeezes Joe's hand, releases it, and quietly gets up.

Ok, Nicky just wrote her a paragraph with that look, and Nile thinks she understood at least a third of it. Maybe she won't feel so out of the loop forever.

Once the door to Nicky and Joe's bedroom has clicked closed, Andy and Joe seem ready to use their words again.

"Booker did kind of have a point," Joe says softly, "that Nicky and I have always had each other. My Nicolo is sitting quietly staring out our window right now because there's more than one type of love that matters, and fuck Booker for forgetting that, but sometimes you want to feel like someone's very first priority. And sometimes you want to have a damn orgasm with someone who loves you. I know exactly how lucky I am to have Nicky but I forget sometimes how hard it must be to live for centuries without romantic love."

"Oh," Nile says.

Andy leans forward, forearms resting on her thighs. "I've had relationships with mortals but it's not the same, and it's not just the preemptive grief. It's the lying, having to hide." She brushes her bangs out of her eyes. "I think it was 1901 when Joe and Nicky took some time off to fuck around on Malta, and I didn't really want to go off by myself and neither did Booker so we went to this place we had in Romania to just chill out by the Black Sea.

"I can't remember which one of us brought it up, we love each other, I'm hot, you're hot, maybe we could love each other like that. Why not? And it was fun. We had a lot of fun." Andy grins but it's one of her lonely ones. "Bonding over still grieving your long-dead soulmates isn't a foundation for a healthy relationship though, and after a few years of it not really working, we called it off and went back to being friends."

Nile nods. She has no idea what her face is doing.

"On and off over the turn of the last century we had a bet going to see who could hook up with the hottest and most talented person in whatever room we were in." Andy leans back and gestures grandly over what is clearly still a point of pride. "Josephine Baker picked me."

"You had sex with _Josephine Baker_?"

Andy grins. "Yeah. She was such a lovely person."

Joe says, "Didn't this whole thing start with Klimt?"

"No, Rodin first, then Klimt," Andy says, smirking. "Booker was _so jealous_ when I ended up with that sculpture you saw."

Nile knows exactly what her face is doing and it is every jaw-drop reaction gif she's ever seen.

"Ah, yes. It was the spring of 1884," Joe says, He's playing it up for Nile like a voiceover in a movie, and he stretches his arms over his head and gets comfy for what clearly is going to be a _story_.

Nile's cheeks are burning by the end of a tale spanning fifty years and including such luminaries as Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (Booker), Emma Goldman (Booker), Rainier Maria Rilke (Andy), Federico García Lorca (Booker), and Gladys Bentley (Andy).

"Bessie Smith _loved_ Booker, she couldn't get enough of him, I was _so_ jealous. Modigliani fucked both of us but he only _painted_ me."

"This ridiculousness continued," Joe says, "until the Spanish Civil War, and ten years of previously unimaginable horrors later, neither of them seemed interested in such things anymore."

Andy blows out a long breath. "By the time any of us were in a party mood again, photography had gotten too good and we had to stop hanging out with famous people entirely."

"Oh wait," Andy adds. "Joe, did I not tell you about this? The best group sex I've ever had in the modern era was with Booker and Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera."

Nile's cheeks are _on fire_. Bless melanin.

Joe laughs for a solid two minutes before he gets it together enough to ask, "Is it safe for Nicky to rejoin us?" Andy smiles and gestures for him to go ahead.

"Hayati," Joe calls, "the rat-fucking conversation is over if you'd like to rejoin us!" Andy lovingly punches him in the shoulder as hard as she can. Joe grins like he regrets nothing, and continues to shout, "I would like to brag to Nile about all the threesomes we had during the Renaissance and your input would be valuable!"

"Oh my God!" Nile laughs. "Tell me about your weird kinks if you must, but you've gotta tell me about the actual art. Did y'all ever meet El Greco?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all for coming with me on this slow-burn that before too much longer will include Booker giving Nile lots of orgasms, I promise. This is also a slow-burn for Nile's character growth, because here at the half-way mark we're finally getting our first glimmer of Nile confronting the limitations of her worldview as a Marine.
> 
> I see in both Nile and Copley some instincts and beliefs about the world that I don't always like about myself. The desire to do good can go very badly, see Copley deciding to work with Merrick, Copley deciding to join the CIA, Nile deciding to join the Marines.
> 
> In a shittier movie Copley would've had no characterization, but Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic and the longer I work on this fic the more I fall in identifying-with-a-character love with Copley. I, uh, live in Washington, DC for a reason. It's perhaps a sign of my own character growth that when I skimmed Drift for this fic I was horrified by how moderate it is, but it was helpful for a younger me and maybe it'll help Nile too.
> 
> The Booker And Andy Used To Fuck headcanon came directly from [Matthias Schoenaerts in this video interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nXF65gFWMk). Basically his theory is that they probably had something romantic or sexual at some point but it was a long time ago and they're both long over it. At first I was skeptical, like is this just an actor being weird about Charlize Theron, but the more I thought about it the more it feels like totally something Andy and Booker would try when they were both sad and lonely. And then it wouldn't have worked, because sad and lonely. Nile has NOTHING to worry about here.
> 
> I don't know shit about art but I'm obsessed with [Vista de Toledo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_Toledo). Joe and Nicky would totally have been friends with El Greco.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter: Nile spends big chunks of this chapter very upset. We have reached the moment of people telling her directly that the US military does bad things, and it _hurts_. It brings up intense grief for her father. There are also many references to climate change, slavery, genocide, imperialism, and war throughout, but no graphic depictions.
> 
> I've added a character tag because this chapter features a cameo from my MCU fave, DAISY JOHNSON. If you haven't seen Agents of SHIELD — first of all, if you're looking for bingeable content, 12/10 strongly recommend (the first season is rough, it gets amazing after that and even better pretty much every season) — all you really need to know is Daisy is a superhero with horrifying piles of childhood and family trauma who's finally in a relatively good place in her life thanks to the tender care of a chosen family. And she ended the series with a boyfriend who's obsessed with how powerful she is, absurdly devoted to her, and from another time. Daisy and Nile would get along like a house on fire. Fellow AOS fans might've caught my passing reference to Bobbi Morse in a previous chapter — I have many thoughts about how Bobbi and Copley met and the nature of their relationship ;D

"You're distracted today," Fatou says. "Everything ok?"

Nile sighs. "That obvious?"

"Ma belle, you look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders."

It's just the two of them this afternoon. She obviously can't tell Fatou the truth, but she can do partial honesty a little easier without the hubbub of family dinner.

"Some old friends of mine from Boston are in town," she says. "It's so good to see them, but it's not just a social call, and there are some questions about potential future projects that— well, that scare me. That's all."

Nile's picking at the spine of her Arabic workbook, and Fatou reaches across the table to take her hand in both of hers.

"I don't pretend to know the first thing about your glittering power suit life, ma belle. But you can tell a lot about a person from how they learn a new language. You are determined, ambitious, good characteristics that this world will make into sins if it can. And you have such heart. I have every confidence that you will do good in this world. Just don't go giving the world so much that there's nothing left for yourself."

Nile takes a deep breath, then another. "I really needed to hear that," she says, in stuttering but clear Arabic. Then, quieter, in Wolof, "Jërëjëf."

Fatou smiles with such warmth that Nile finally lets herself cry.

* * *

It really is so good to get to spend time face-to-face with Andy, Joe, and Nicky again. Nile's trying to enjoy it.

Part of the point of her moving to London by herself was to give her space to adjust to the mind-bogglingly different pace of immortal life. To give her practice in building a routine and friends and everything else about a life that could make a person happy while knowing just how profoundly temporary it all is. To get her head around the fact that every single person who is part of her day-to-day here will soon be a very distant memory, if she remembers them at all.

Well, except for Booker.

She's so relieved they weren't mad at her for spending time with him. Of course she doesn't want to upset them, but more than that, she really _likes_ spending time with Booker. And not just because she knows he'll probably still be alive in a thousand years.

And damn, those book recommendations were something. She kind of hates Rachel Maddow now? Or the military industrial complex? Or herself?

Yeah. Nile's _trying_ to enjoy this time with her new family. But there's no getting around the fact that she chose to engineer a two-week series of meetings where they examine a lot of existential questions she is not prepared to answer so that they can determine the optimal ways of spending the next quarter-century of their lives.

Why the fuck did she do this to herself.

So much of the time they spend in Copley's home conference room is boring more than anything else. He's just relaying to her team what the two have them have already been studying for nearly a full year.

(It will _never_ stop being hilarious to her that he hired a contractor to build him a little piece of an office building in his home, the nerd — and she needs that little dash of humor so bad right now.)

They still have a great time together outside these walls. Nile kicks ass at Linguistics Uno. Joe helps her put her locs up into a gorgeously intricate style that she gets compliments on all week. Andy shows up at Nile's fencing lesson and cheers her on like the proud older sister she is — including the good-natured ribbing later at dinner.

But there's a cloud over the whole visit. Two days before she's due to leave, Andy finally puts a name to what exactly is going on.

Nile's trying to make their team into a terrifying cross between God and the world's secret police.

"I'm sorry, Nile, but this is the most United States Marines shit I've ever heard," Andy says.

Nile can almost feel that insurgent's knife at her neck. She refuses to look at Copley right now, but she catches the look that passes between Joe and Nicky. They look—

They look relieved. Like they're glad Andy was the one who said it.

It's all Nile can do to keep breathing. She could excuse herself for more water like she did when Copley basically said the exact same thing three weeks ago, but she doubts she'd be able to swallow, her throat is so tight.

She just— she— her _father_ — she can't—

Every person in this room cares about her. She knows they care about her. They know what her dad's memory means to her. None of them are saying any of this to be mean. None of them would judge her the slightest bit for crying.

So they sit there in silence while Nile cries. After a few minutes Nile realizes Nicky is crying too.

Nile's breath starts to come easier. The air doesn't feel quite so thick anymore. Nicky fishes a packet of tissues out of his bag, takes two, and slides the rest of the packet across the table to Nile with a look that makes her suddenly realize how little time she's spent alone with him in this first year of knowing each other. Maybe it's time to change that.

Once Nile's done blotting her cheeks and blowing her nose, Andy catches her eye and gives her a little smile. Nile finds that it's easy to smile back.

Andy says, "I've been thinking about how it felt to look at those walls covered in all our good deeds. I think Nile's right that hopping from job to job, hearing about a war and deciding which side we think is right and showing up to volunteer, it doesn't make sense when climate change could put us all at the bottom of the ocean."

She goes quiet, but it's clear she's not done talking. Nile focuses on breathing.

"I think," Andy continues, "there's a fine line between doing everything in our power to make sure people can continue to live on this planet, and enforcing our particular ideas about how people should live on this planet. It's not just that we can't control everything — we shouldn't try. But I know there are a few things on our highlights reel that I'm very, very proud of. Maybe that's where we start. A thousand years from now, what do you want to be proud of? You two, of course," she says, gesturing to Joe and Nicky, "but especially you, Nile."

Oh.

This is an existential question Nile immediately knows her answer to. She feels it running up the back of her spine and across her shoulders and down into the balls of her feet. It's nice to know she can still feel like that.

"A thousand years from now I want to be able to tell the next immortal what y'all told me about freeing slaves."

Nile doesn't realize she's crying again until Andy wraps her up in a hug and her wet cheek mashes into Andy's shoulder. She soaks up the feeling of Andy's hands at her back.

Nicky passes around a second packet of tissues, this time starting with Copley.

Joe suggests that once everyone's gathered themselves they could take a good long walk, maybe get takeout.

They find a mom-and-pop curry place to tip extravagantly for as much food as they can carry, and then they laugh at themselves when they have to do some rearranging so Nicky and Copley can pop into a liquor store. Nile asks them to get a little bottle of nice tequila in addition to whatever wine they're planning on and Andy's vodka. What a sight they must make, tottering through this bourgie neighborhood with the contents of an entire catering van in their arms, Nicky's backpack clattering with every step.

The conference room starts its transformation with the smell of samosas that Andy digs into before the rest of them even have even set down their bags.

Copley has an honest-to-God champagne bucket that he fills with ice for the vodka and sets right next to Andy's seat. Nile shows Nicky and Joe around Copley's kitchen and the three of them make a few trips to carry up to the conference room all the plates and glasses and napkins and flatware and serving spoons and hot sauces and whatever other supplies they think they might need.

What had been a site of grim headlines and impossible choices over the last ten days they manage to recreate into something akin to the fire pit out back of their safehouse in Greece. The food is amazing, but the stories are better. Joe gets things started with a story about one of the proudest moments of his nearly thousand years, commandeering a yacht to help Armenian refugees escape the genocide. Then Nicky tells them about the time Joe gave a book about astronomy to a child whose grin he can still remember 400 years later.

Copley shows them a video of a speech his wife had made at a work event the year before she was diagnosed. Nile tells a hilarious and convoluted story involving her brother and her two childhood best friends that requires her to draw a map and ends in tequila shots. By the time they're done for the night, Joe and Nile have covered the whiteboard walls with cartoons of their stories.

They'll come back tomorrow to decide what's next. Nile doubts they'll decide on much more than the date for their next conversation about all this, but that's ok. They have time. As long as the Earth keeps spinning, they have time.

* * *

Andy had left for Vietnam that morning to meet back up with Quynh, and now Joe is leaving too. He's driving out to Cardiff to visit a friend for the weekend, an art historian who'd been a contact on a mission once upon a time, became a friend, and now has a lead on a stolen art collection in need of rescuing.

Which leaves Nile and Nicky by themselves over Easter weekend.

It's not until they're eating the homemade pasta they'd spent all Saturday afternoon making together that Nile realizes he'd arranged this one-on-one time on purpose.

Nile learns that Nicky's relationship with the Church has ebbed and flowed over the years, and not always on the same tide as his relationship with God. And he's fascinated by everything she says about the differences between the churches she's been trying out, over a dozen by now.

She takes him to an AME church for Easter Sunday services and it's a warmth in her bones to hear him singing next to her. He knows almost all the songs, and his frequent accidental harmonies are beautiful — apparently Nicolo di Genova is a walking hymnal library, just missing a few decades of updates here and there.

Sunday afternoon finds them sitting in a park, snacking on cheese and crusty bread, watching kids and dogs running around. Nile can tell Nicky is gearing up for something, and after the last few weeks of excruciating conversations, whatever it is can't be that bad by comparison. She watches an eight-year-old toss a ball for a corgi and then run after the ball alongside the corgi. Kids, man.

She's not expecting Nicky to bring up the Crusades.

"I have been waiting until we know each other a little better to bring this up, cucciola. You and I have a difficult thing in common. We started our immortal lives as soldiers in invading armies."

_What?_

Nile starts to object, but he holds up a placating hand. 

"I know, I know, American Marines do not like to be called soldiers, you are not the first one I've worked with. You _are_ the one I love the most, and had you been alive in 1944 to meet a few of the others, you would know what a compliment that is."

"Nicky—" she starts, but she doesn't know what to say.

"You took up your father's legacy, sorellina, and that is beautiful. You grew into a skilled warrior in your time as a Marine and you did not let it harden your kind heart. But your time as a Marine has hardened you to perspectives your country's leaders do not favor. Perspectives of the people of Afghanistan, for example. That is why these last two weeks have been so hard.

"I took up the cross because I believed it to be right. I slaughtered innocents for not sharing my faith, burned people alive in their mosques. Men I had loved like brothers cannibalized the dead. I repeatedly murdered the love of my life for the crime of taking an ill-timed business trip to the city I was invading. It took me centuries to repent for how wrong I had been."

Nile had _not_ heard about cannibalism during the Crusades, what the _fuck_.

"I think it was your destiny to guide us in adapting to this changing world. You were born for this. The people and land of your birth helped you become the capable woman before me today, and they will always be a part of you. But you are no longer a Marine. It's time to consider you may have fought on the wrong side of a war that should never have happened, and examine what you, not the United States, what _you_ believe is right."

Nile's head is swimming.

A buzz from Nicky's phone pulls them both out of the moment, and Nicky checks it and finds an update from Joe on the adventure they're apparently embarking on tomorrow.

"My love is whisking me away tomorrow for an art heist," Nicky says. "Yusuf is the most patient and forgiving man who has ever walked this Earth — I'd call him Christ-like, but he's so much sexier." Nile must be making a face at that, or maybe Nicky is just entertained by his own blaspheming, because he honest-to-God _giggles_.

It's all Nile can do to keep breathing.

"Yusuf loved me despite everything I had done, long before I had come to truly regret having gone on Crusade. I am here for you, Nile. Whenever you want to talk, about this, or anything really — with the one exception that I trust you understand." She has enough wherewithal to nod at that, and Nicky continues, "It will take time to confront the beliefs your commanders instilled in you and learn to see the world through different eyes. I will need you to do that before I will follow your command without question. But I will love you and be here for you for as long as you need."

Her _soul_ hurts. She's grateful, at least, that Nicky doesn't seem to expect any kind of response.

"I have not given a homily in many centuries," Nicky says, and she thinks the look he gives her means he's signaling that the homily is over. "Good to know I can still string together so many sentences one after another when the need arises. Thank you for listening, sorellina."

They spend another hour or so in the park. It takes Nile 20 minutes before she says a word.

* * *

Nile and Copley skipped their usual Monday meeting this week, and next week they're going out for fancy dress-up lunch. They've earned a break from The Conference Room of Emotional Conversations, Copley says.

Nile spends half of dinner at Fatou's that night building her fashion-related vocab as they talk about what she might wear. His auntie may not exactly be on trend, Malik tells her, but she has amazing color sense.

She and Booker have been texting off and on but she hasn't seen him since before the family were in town. When he suggests movie night at his place Tuesday night, she doesn't even think about it, just asks what time and what can she bring. She doesn't need to bring anything, he says, he'll cook.

That frees up her afternoon after Hindi tutoring to mess around with her hair while she watches a Bollywood movie. It doesn't count against her that she has the subtitles on if her eyes are away from the screen half the time, right?

On her way to Booker's she can't stop herself from swinging by a bakery to pick up a few cookies — _biscuits_ , ugh — just so she doesn't show up empty-handed. Nicky would probably say she's honoring her mother. That thought makes her smile.

Booker welcomes her into his place with a quiet, "Bonsoir." It's so good to see him, and she hugs him tight.

"It smells amazing!" she says once she lets him go. "Whatcha cooking?"

"Beef stew and bread," he says. "Can I get you anything to drink? There's red wine in the stew, you're welcome to glass of that if you'd like, it's merlot. Or water?"

She's curious but it doesn't feel right to ask. "Water for now, please," she says.

He nods, and she follows him into the corner of his living room that is the kitchen. The place is a glorified studio, with a beautiful arched doorway but no door separating his bedroom from the rest of the space. It's cozy. Practically the only spaces not covered in books are the small dining table and the marble-countertop kitchen island where she sets down the bakery bag.

"I picked up something for dessert," she says when he turns around to hand her a glass of water.

"Merci, ma biscotte," he says with a quirk of his lips.

"I did in fact bring cookies! How'd you guess?" She's not sure how to categorize the look he gives her. Amused, she hopes? "I know about two dozen cookie-related words in Mandarin by now but I cannot for the life of me remember to call them biscuits in my own language."

He dips a clean spoon into the stew and blows on it before tasting it for seasoning. "Radically different can be a lot easier to adjust to than things that are familiar but not quite home," he says to the pot as he adds a few grinds of pepper. Without looking up, he adds, "That's beautiful what you've done with your hair."

Oh God, did she just _giggle_?

"Thank you," she says, because Booker is her friend and there is no need to get weird about it just because her art-and-fashion-inclined friend gives her a compliment.

She babbles about her afternoon of trying not to look at the subtitles on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, about Fatou giving her the ribbons that she ended up wrapping around and braiding through her locs, about the corgi from the other afternoon.

Nile asks permission before she goes snooping through his book collection, but the moment he says, "of course," she's making a beeline for the stack of books by his couch.

"Are these for a class, or are you trying to send me a message?" she asks, meaning it as a joke, after a quiet moment of running her fingers down the spines.

"Hmm?" he asks. Oh _wow_ , he just brought a homemade loaf of bread out of the oven. It smells _so good_.

Booker sees that she's over by his Womanist Classics stack and he tells her so. But there's a weird note in his voice, and Nile catches him darting his eyes over to a different stack of books on the floor by the TV.

While he does a few last things for dinner and gets the table set, Nile tells him about her mom's teaching career. She pushed for a few of these same books to be added to the Chicago Public Schools curriculum. [System-wide Black history education is still a mess, even 30 years after a damn law requiring it](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2013-12-12-ct-curriculum-african-american-met-20131212-story.html), but Nile's high school did pretty well, mostly thanks to her mom. It went a long way in balancing out the awkwardness of having her mom as one of her teachers her junior year.

She works her way around the room as she talks, noticing books she wants to come back to later. When she makes it over to the stack that Booker had glanced at weirdly a little while ago — are those cartoon animals having sex on the cover? Huh. Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown.

Oh right, adrienne maree brown was one of the names that came up when she went down an internet rabbit hole after finishing Charlene Carruthers's book.

"This smells amazing, thank you for cooking!" she says, settling into a chair now that dinner's on the table.

"Happy to," he says. "I like cooking. I was thinking we could watch Into the Spiderverse, it really is gorgeous and I haven't seen it in a while. Or you might really like Persepolis. I have to watch it for class by the end of next week, but no pressure. Or there's always Bollywood?"

She laughs. "Let's see how we feel after dinner."

Nile asks him how classes are going. She really is interested, and he lights up as they talk about history and neuroscience and resilience. So much of it is so heavy, devastatingly heavy, but hopeful too. In much the same way as some of the conversations she's had lately with Nicky and Andy and Joe and Copley.

He doesn't look happy, exactly, talking about colonialism and slavery and genocide and how trauma changes brain chemistry. She thinks it's something about his posture, a set to his shoulders. Like his shoulders know they're capable of carrying what he needs to carry and shaking off what he doesn't.

It makes her think about that feeling she gets in her spine sometimes, the way her posture changes like her body knows it's time to lead her team. She tells him about it, and he gets that look on his face again, the one she keeps seeing but can't place. He doesn't seem upset, and she's fascinated by what he's sharing about working with his somatic therapist.

They're starting to be pretty close friends, her and Booker. If something's up, he'd tell her. Right? It's one of the things she knows he's working on because of the exile, not bottling up his feelings and trying to drown them in booze, actually telling his close people how he's feeling.

Which reminds her. He poured them both a glass of wine when they sat down for dinner, and he's slowly sipped from his glass and not moved to refill it. If he's got liquor bottles all over the house, they're well hidden. They're getting close, but she's not trying to be his therapist, so she decides not to ask.

He breaks a quiet moment by telling her she's welcome to talk about the family's visit if she wants to. "I don't want you to feel like I'm pressuring you for intel, but you don't have to ignore that part of your life around me if you don't want to."

Bless him, he looks nervous.

"You're a sweetheart," she says. "I haven't said anything about it because I'm kinda still processing — their visit was even less tactical planning and even more existential questions than what I was bracing myself for the last time we talked about it."

She tears a bite off the little slice of bread that remains on her plate, but she doesn't eat it.

"Ok, can I ask you a weird question?" He nods, so she asks, "Do you ever, like— do you miss France?"

The way his face changes tells her he understands. She's not asking in the way Malik once asked if she misses Boston. Booker _understands_.

"Andy, Joe, and Nicky have absolutely no idea what it means to me that [I was a fifteen year old marching on Paris in the Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_of_10_August_1792) only to be forced to march to Russia and starve for some jackass who wanted to turn the republic I fought for into an empire controlling all of Europe and as much of Africa and the Caribbean as he could gobble up. None whatsoever. When they became immortal they grieved families they had to leave behind, communities, land — but they don't know what it is to grieve a _country_. The concept has only existed for about as long as I have. They don't understand what it means."

Nile nods. "That makes a lot of sense. And it sounds really lonely."

He looks like he's not ready to address that, and they both let it pass. Instead, he asks, "Your father was a Marine too, am I remembering that right?"

"Yeah," she says.

"None of them have any idea what that means."

"Well, Nicky has an idea. I took him to Easter worship on Sunday and then we sat in a park and he told me he knows what it's like to serve in an invading army and wake up one morning to realize you were the bad guy."

"Merde." Booker looks like he's choosing his words carefully. "The one piece of information I will ask you about them, I promise. Please tell me Nicky made an effort not to be mean about that."

"He did," she says, and it's softer, warm. "He sure didn't hesitate to tell me about myself, but he was kind about it."

"Good," he says. "Wait, did your father die serving in Afghanistan?"

"Yeah," she whispers.

"I'm sorry."

Nile takes a deep breath. "My mom made me try community college first, but I wanted to enlist. I believed in what my dad gave his life for. I wanted to help people, protect people, spread democracy."

"And here comes Nicky, whose countrymen include several bastard popes, Christopher Columbus, and Benito Mussolini, to tell you that you were the bad guy." Booker snorts.

After a moment, he asks, "Did the others tell you when I was born?"

Nile shakes her head.

"1776," he says, wry.

"No shit?"

He quirks an eyebrow. "The United States was a backwater until the 20th century but France was obsessed with it all the same. I grew up hearing all about this country that had won égalité a few years before us — well, for white men, at least. It was certainly easier for Frenchmen to talk about than the Haitian Revolution. All I wanted when I wrote my mother a note and ran away from home in the middle of the night to go march to Paris was to be a part of reshaping France into a country ruled by all its people, and to come home, make a living, marry, raise children, and teach them that liberté ['has no bounds other than those that guarantee other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen). I never wanted to be a soldier."

Nile grabs his hand where it's resting on the table and gives him a squeeze. Booker inhales sharply, but then he smiles and gives her a brief squeeze back.

"The world watched 19 years ago," he says, "when an attack on civilians in the US was twisted by your president in an attempt to legitimize horrifying attacks on many, many more civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. The thing about democracy is sometimes the majority makes a bad choice. You weren't old enough to vote yet when George W Bush was reelected, were you?"

"I was ten," Nile says, and they both chuckle at the absurdity of their age difference.

"Now I know how Andy feels," he says, deliberately light.

He sighs. "I was very proud to fight alongside US Marines against Nazis. Every conflict your country's been involved in since then has been something of a clusterfuck, and a democracy that makes so many decades of troubling decisions is either suppressing a lot of votes or convincing a majority of its people to believe troubling things, perhaps both. Your country raised you to believe that your war in Afghanistan was to spread democracy — it's not your fault that your leaders misled you, even outright lied to you. It's up to you to decide what to do about it."

Nile's heart is pounding, but her throat doesn't feel tight like it did with Nicky. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah."

"There are ideals of [sans-culottisme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-culottes) that I still believe, fiercely, more intensely than I think I can explain. I would have gladly died for the France I thought we were building. Elements of it are still alive and I'm glad for that. There are elements that never sat quite right with me, like the idea that religion is to be hidden away from the public square. But someday the world might be so different that liberté as I know it is no longer relevant, and I don't know any better than you what to do about that. I do have some more books that might help."

"This is how you got your nickname, isn't it?" she says.

"Oui. That and my original surname was le Livre, though that was probably secondary to having a book in my hand at nearly all times when I wasn't holding a gun."

"Thank you for telling me all this," she says quietly. "The idea that my dad died in a war that— shit, I can't even say it out loud. Probably won't be able to for a long time. But it explains a lot about how frustrating these meetings with Copley and the family have been. I'm still operating like a Marine. I could do with thinking about what American ideals I want to hold onto and what I—"

She takes a few deep breaths.

"Like, I can see how showing up with a bunch of guns and saying 'y'all are gonna be a democracy now whether you like it or not, here's a constitution we wrote for you, now we will be teaching you how to govern yourselves' could come across as rude." Nile laughs sharply, gesturing at herself. "I know how ridiculous that is. Just leave my dad the fuck out of it, you know?"

"I know," Booker says, and it's low and rumbly. Warm. Safe.

They both fall quiet. In search of something to do with her hands, Nile reaches for the wine bottle. "Do you want to split the last of this?"

"No, you go ahead," he says. So she does.

"Will you give me a tour of your library?" she asks. "I was just getting started when we sat down and you have so many interesting books."

He smiles at her. "Of course. I'll just put away the dinner things."

"You better let me help clean up, ok?" She stands up and grabs her dishes before he can tell her otherwise.

They orbit around each other in the kitchen, and despite having only fought together the once, a full year ago now, there's a familiarity to how they share the small space. Must be that Nicky has instilled his idea of kitchen protocol in them both.

Booker's library tour is a workout — her thighs might be sore tomorrow from all this squatting to see what's at the bottom of these stacks of books he's got growing out of the floor against every available piece of wall. She teases him about whether he's considered a second bookshelf.

"Oh cool," Nile says when she sees the Angela Davis collection. She picks up the one at the top of the pile, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, and she flips through a few pages before she remembers. 

She catches his eye and waggles the book at him, smirking. "You know, Andy told me about y'all's competition. Bessie Smith? Damn."

Booker blushes bright red. And — is he giving her _that look_ again, _now_?

She doesn't let that stop her from asking what she really wants to know. "And Frida fucking Kahlo, are you kidding me? I think I understand how jealous Andy says you were about Rodin. What was she like?"

She knows her eyes are twinkling because _oh my God what must it be like to have one of the greatest artists of all time put their hands on you_ but, oof, Booker looks like his operating system crashed, she should reword that.

"Sorry, I meant—"

"It's fine, ma biscotte, I just haven't thought about those days in a long time, that's all. I feel really lucky that I got to be there for a little bit of the Harlem Renaissance. Hearing Bessie sing live was—" and he pauses, searches for the right words. Finally finishes the sentence with a French expression she's not familiar with, but she thinks she gets the gist.

They end up spending _two hours_ talking their way through his book collection.

"Desolée," he says when he realizes. "I invited you here for a movie and instead I've talked your ear off."

She nudges him playfully in the shoulder. "I'm having a great time!" She pauses to do the math, though, and, "Shit, I have an early morning tomorrow, I should get going. Thank you so much for having me."

"Thank you for coming," he says, and it's — almost shy?

He goes to his pantry to get a tote bag for her to carry home the half-dozen books he's loaning her. "I'd love to hear what you think of Emergent Strategy," he says. "I wish I had a copy of Borderlands/La Frontera to loan you, but I think you'll love it."

"You're the best, Sébastien," she says without thinking about it. His real name is nice. Once she realizes she should probably get his permission before using a name she's never heard anyone else call him, he's already hugging her tight.

He's laughing. It feels good, him laughing in her arms.

"You can call me my real name Chicago-style all you want, ma cherie," he says into her shoulder. He releases her and hands her the tote. "Get home safe, ok?"

"I will," she says. "Good night."

* * *

Nile's Mandarin tutor, Wendy, is the closest to her own age. Copley's promised battery of immigrant aunties has turned out to be two aunties, a zayde, and an Old Millennial, and Wendy's the crotchetiest of the bunch. She and her wife both have chronic illnesses that make it difficult and unfun to do a lot of the "typical" twenties-thirties social life things, and Nile learns quickly how much Wendy appreciates a last-minute plan change.

Whenever she's having a low-pain day Wendy texts Nile to meet her at a cafe instead of her flat. They go to a different cafe every time — it's almost May already, they've been to about a dozen cafes by now. Nile is learning so many ways to say something tastes good.

This morning Wendy asked Nile to meet her at an Ethiopian coffee house Booker had mentioned he'd been meaning to try, so Nile texts him an invite to meet up for pre-tutoring homework hangout.

The coffee is _amazing_. And it's soothing to sit there with him in the late-morning sun. He doesn't mind when she mutters under her breath, practicing the tones that she _will_ master eventually, damnit.

After a while, Nile looks up and finds Booker is softly crying. The book he's reading is An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison — Nile hasn't heard of it, but she can guess where this is going.

"Hey," she says. "You ok?"

A smile spreads across his face like everything is going to be ok. "Turns out that untreated mental illness can make it really difficult to make good life choices." He quirks an eyebrow. "Just validating, that's all."

She smiles back, and it's one of those cheek-squeezing ones that bubble up from her soul, she couldn't stop it if she wanted to. "Good," she says. "I'm glad."

The morning passes quietly, and Nile's just asked their server for a second coffee when she sees Wendy walking up.

"Hey!" Nile calls as Wendy walks up to their table. "This place is great, thanks for recommending it. Wendy, meet my friend Booker, he's been keeping me company while I did my homework this morning. Booker, Wendy."

Booker looks up from his bag and smiles at Wendy. "早," he says.

They exchange a few sentences Nile does _not_ follow. She recognizes some words, and Mandarin's the hardest for her of the five languages she's trying to stuff into her brain, so she'll take it as a victory.

He makes eye contact with Nile and says, "会儿见," a little slower than when he was talking to Wendy just now. She rolls her eyes at him, because she _did_ recognize that, thank you.

Nile usually hugs him hello and goodbye, but he looks a little off-kilter, and he's stepping away before she can get up. He turns back and gives her an awkward little wave before disappearing into the growing lunch rush crowd down the sidewalk.

Wendy sits down in the spot Booker had just vacated. "You've seen the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice?" she asks.

"Yeah," Nile says, drawing it out. "Why?"

Wendy smirks at her. "I was just intensely reminded of Mister Darcy's hand flex."

"Uh, weird time to bring up the hand flex, but ok," Nile says with a mystified laugh.

Wendy grins. "You really are my favorite client."

"谢谢," Nile says, and Wendy rewards her with a high five because she aced the pronunciation.

* * *

"Hey, are you Lena?" says Daisy Johnson, who is — damn — even prettier than in those surveillance photos Copley showed her. She's got long, wavy hair and she's wearing a purple motorcycle jacket and a lacy black scarf over jeans and heeled boots.

Nile nods.

"Daisy," she says, holding out her hand. Nile shakes it and gestures for Daisy to sit on the blanket with her. "I'm supposed to tell you the password is phlebotinum."

"In that case, I'm Nile. Nice to meet you."

They're meeting in a public park at a low-traffic time of day. Copley and Daisy both independently made arrangements to ensure there would be no recordings of this conversation. And Copley had assured her that he would trust this woman with his life.

"So, immortal, huh?" Daisy says casually.

_What?_

"Uh—"

Daisy chuckles. "Did James not tell you about my deal?"

"He told me you're a covert operative and you have a lead on weapons that disable but don't injure," Nile says, narrowing her eyes. "Is that what we're here to talk about?"

"Yeah!" Daisy says. "I just figured since you're a fellow outside-the-lines type we could also just hang."

"Outside the lines?"

"Wow, James really didn't brief you, sorry about that. He read me the riot act before telling me about your deal, I had to give up some very sensitive intel before he agreed to this meeting, which is ironic because the whole point of this meeting is for _me_ to give _you_ weapons, but whatever. Spies, man." Daisy looks at her with an eyebrow quirk, like she's expecting Nile to agree.

_Spies, man._

"You're an immortal, I'm an Inhuman." Daisy grins. "Which means I'm mostly human but I have some Kree DNA, they were these Nazi-ass aliens who invaded Earth millions of years ago and experimented on early humans. It was a lot of traumatic bullshit, but it also means I can do this."

Daisy holds her hand out like she's Darth Vader or something. And then Nile's Arabic workbook starts to shake, and suddenly the pages are flipping open.

"I can control vibrations. They call me Quake."

"Damn," Nile says.

Daisy looks expectant, like she's trying to be polite about it and failing miserably. So Nile grabs her pocket knife.

She slits open the pad of her forefinger and holds it up so Daisy can watch as it heals immediately.

"Damn," Daisy says. After a beat, she asks, "James said you're new to this, right? You're a fellow millennial surrounded by people from other times?"

Nile nods, but she probably still looks at least partially as dumbfounded as she feels. Pretty girls always did make her a little stupid.

"Dude, my boyfriend fought in World War 2! And the last person who tried to date me was born in the 2070s. And my sister looks like she's our age but that's because we pulled her out of 1982. I'm surrounded by people who do _not_ get my pop culture references. Time travel, you know?"

 _Oh._ This girl is trying to platonically bond with her. She has a boyfriend, of course she does. But Nile's had some recent success with extending a hand of friendship to people in... unusual circumstances.

Nile laughs. " _James_ failed to tell me a damn thing about _time travel_ , holy shit. All my elderly friends got here the long way and they _really_ do not get my pop culture references."

"How old are we talking?" Daisy asks, waggling her eyebrows.

"Two of them fell in love after murdering each other during the Crusades, and one of them is, I shit you not, _older than the wheel_."

"No!" Daisy laughs. "I've been to dozens of alien planets, basically the Matrix, and a dystopian future that _I caused_ — long story, everything's fine now," she adds when Nile looks sharply at her. "But one of your crew was actually on this planet a million years ago when humans invented the _wheel_?"

"Yeah. Her pop culture references are, uh, a lot. And it wasn't millions of years, but as best as I can figure out, she's legit over 5,000 years old, maybe over 6,000."

"Damn," Daisy says. And then, as if it's not a lightning-fast topic change, she asks, "You seeing anybody? Dating civilians sounds... complicated, with your situation."

Nile sighs. "Nah. I'm new to this, I'm not anywhere near ready to go falling in love with someone I know I'll outlive by millennia. And every immortal I've met is gorgeous but they're all either in a thousand-year committed relationship or supremely messed up in the head."

"I get that," Daisy says, and she looks like she actually does. "The first person I dated since getting involved in all this spy shit turned out to be a literal Nazi. You remember that thing a few years ago when Captain America blew up a federal building? Turns out I was sleeping with one of those bastards."

"Shit," is all Nile can think of to say.

They're both quiet for a minute.

"Ok," Nile says, "we should probably talk about that arms deal, but since you asked, and since we have mutually assured, uh," and she gestures between them, "not spilling each other's secrets. It's a terrible idea so I'm not gonna do anything about it, but if I _was_ gonna try seeing anybody, it would be the next-youngest immortal after me."

Did she really just say that out loud. Nile cannot believe she just said that out loud.

Daisy is _grinning_. "Do tell! Only the very beautiful get picked to be immortals, clearly," she says, and it's a split-second but Daisy is definitely looking her over. "Why's it a terrible idea? They're not a Nazi, I hope?"

"Definitely not a Nazi. He fought Nazis, and Confederates before that, and— ugh, he's just like stupid white-boy beautiful and kind of a dumbass but really nice to be around? I might've just admitted my crush to myself in the last five minutes, which is terrible opsec, I can't believe I'm telling you this."

Daisy's eyebrows crinkle — and _fuck_ , it's just a little too much like Booker's worried expression. She says, "Hey, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Kinda sounds like it might help, though?"

Nile snorts. "Yeah, probably," she says into her hands. She flexes her fingers to stop herself from picking at her cuticles and makes a point to look up and meet Daisy's eyes. "Thanks. I can't really talk to anybody else about this because Booker — weird nickname — did a very stupid, very selfish thing last year for kinda understandable trauma reasons but it hurt the others really really badly and they've exiled him from our little immortal family for an entire century. He's got like 98.92 years left on his sentence."

"Oh shit," Daisy says.

"Yeah," Nile says. Her cheeks are on fire all of a sudden. She's _into_ Booker. Do immortals come in pairs or some shit like that? What the actual—

Nile blows out a breath, because now is not the time. "Thank you for letting me rant about my inadvisable crush — really, thank you," she says, smiling gratefully at Daisy. "But we should probably talk about that arms deal."

So they do that. They talk through potential snags with manufacturing, raw materials sourcing, what a lurking HYDRA operative might do with intel that immortals walk the Earth. They come to a tentative agreement that Daisy needs to finalize with Mack and Fitzsimmons for government approval and technical details respectively. Nile as vigilante team leader can cement this agreement here and now, but she'd like her team to weigh in.

And God help her, she's also interested in Booker's opinion on the icers, as it turns out they're called.

Just as it's feeling like their meeting is wrapping up, Daisy points to Nile's workbook. "So you're learning Arabic? Impressive, that looks hard."

Nile smirks. She can be a little bit of a show-off in front of a pretty girl, ok? "Arabic, French, Mandarin, Hindi, and Russian. Any chance you've got a part-alien friend who can just implant this shit in my brain?"

"Omg I wish. My sister speaks Mandarin, I've been trying to learn so I can fight back when she's talking shit about me, but I'm an ugly American who, despite being a spy for almost a decade, still only speaks English and memes." Daisy seems to realize something, and then she knocks the back of her hand playfully against Nile's bicep. "You should come visit the ship sometime! Take a trip with us, if you want. Kora and Daniel would like you. Oh and my friend Mack would _love_ you, maybe he can take a vacation for once and join us. It'll be fun!"

Nile will need to have words with Copley before anything like that happens, but for now, she lets herself smile at the idea. "That does sound fun," she says. "It would be good to stay in touch, have someone to talk to outside our very outside-the-lines little teams."

"Yes please!" Daisy says, and Nile laughs.

They hug each other goodbye. Nile spends another hour sitting in the park, practicing Arabic script and conjugations and enjoying the feel of having made a new friend. When the sun's gotten low enough that she needs another light source, but the street lights haven't come on yet, she gathers her things, brushes dirt off her blanket — and she picks up her phone and leaves Copley a voicemail.

"Hey _James_ , were you planning on telling me you were setting me up for a friend-date with an alien? But she's awesome, so thank you."

* * *

Nile knocks on the apartment door. 

When it finally opens, Booker's standing there in a sleeveless tee and low-slung sweatpants, hair mussed, eyebrows furrowed. Shit, she must've woken him up. "Nile?" he asks in a quiet rumble. "Are you ok?"

"Hi," she says. "Everything's fine, I just... wanted to see you."

He smiles at her softly and gestures for her to come in.

She'd planned to say something, she _should_ say something. But now that she's here, where to even start? She plants one hand on his jaw, gives herself a few seconds to brush her thumb across his cheek before— _oh_ , he's leaning down without having to be tugged, he's _kissing her_.

Talking can wait, they _will_ talk, she swears, just not right now. Her skin is humming and the cacophony in her brain has finally gone quiet. He smells so good. She feels so cared for with his hands on her.

All of a sudden he's scooping her up in his arms and setting her on the marble countertop of the island, _fuck_ he feels so good when she wraps her legs around his waist, this is going _even better than she'd imagined_. He's kissing down her throat, unbuttoning her blouse—

She wakes up in a sweat. Oh _shit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry to leave y'all on a tease like that ;D ;D ;D
> 
> Jërëjëf = thank you in Wolof  
> cucciola = an endearment, literally puppy  
> sorellina = little sister  
> 早 = morning, short for 早上好, good morning  
> 会儿见 = see you later  
> 谢谢 = thank you  
> ma biscotte = my biscuit (ie cookie), an endearment — continued shout-out to highlightcity159 for teaching me about French endearments!
> 
> I make so much fun of Copley for building a conference room in his house because that is, I shit you not, a personal fantasy of mine. An entire room with floor to ceiling white boards?? (This feels like a somewhat less absurd fantasy than, you know, owning a home.)
> 
> Agents of SHIELD never dealt with Infinity War or Endgame. I headcanon that the AOS finale took place in 2020, in an alternate timeline where the Snap never happened, and I'm choosing for that to be the timeline that our elderly friends live in. AOS and/or Buffy fans, I hope you enjoyed the phlebotinum reference :)
> 
> Kiki Layne hair inspiration for this chapter:  
> <https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/kiki-layne-cant-help-but-shine>  
> <https://greyreignmedia.com/rl_gallery/if-beale-street-could-talk-2018-kiki-layne/>
> 
> The first kernel of this fic way back in September was my imagining what books Booker might read in lieu of therapy. Here are books that I can imagine might be on Booker's syllabus this semester and therefore would be in piles all over his apartment. I'm not an academic and I've done very little travel outside the US let alone gone to grad school in London this is a laughably American-centric book list. I'm aware of the irony of this in a fic about Nile unlearning American-centrism. (Write what you know, or something?)
> 
> Memoir from the Margins  
> Redefining Realness - Janet Mock  
> An Unquiet Mind - Kay Redfield Jamison  
> American Smooth - Rita Dove  
> Fun Home - Alison Bechdel  
> Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi  
> March - John Lewis  
> She's Not There - Jennifer Finney Boylan  
> Coming of Age in Mississippi - Anne Moody  
> Flat Broke with Children - Sharon Hays  
> Without a Net - Michelle Tea  
> Cosecha and Other Stories - Aurora Levins Morales  
> A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection of Writing and Art by North American Indian Women - ed. Beth Brant  
> Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self - Rebecca Walker
> 
> Womanist Classics  
> Sister Outsider - Audre Lorde  
> We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  
> At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle L. McGuire  
> A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South - Anna J. Cooper  
> Women, Race, and Class - Angela Davis  
> All the Women Are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies, edited by Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith  
> The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké  
> Black Looks: Race and Representation - bell hooks  
> The Revolution Will Not Be Funded - INCITE!  
> "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics" - Kimberlé Crenshaw  
> Critical race theory: the key writings that formed the movement - Kimberlé Crenshaw; Neil Gotanda; Gary Peller; Kendall Thomas  
> Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology - ed. Barbara Smith


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out that shiny new Jewish Booker tag! This is now [only the second work in the tag so far](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Jewish%20Booker%20%7C%20Sebastien%20le%20Livre), so if you dig Jewish Booker, please join me! [The first work in the tag is gorgeous](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608969), go read it immediately and give its author some love!
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * References to serious childhood illness. We meet a child who's survived an unnamed illness, and Booker references his youngest son's death from cancer — for plot reasons he lies and says Jean-Pierre died at age 14.
>   * References to antisemitism, including expulsion, forced conversion, and the Holocaust.
>   * References to historical and recent homophobia and biphobia.
>   * WE EARN THAT EXPLICIT RATING, Y'ALL. See alllllllllllll the sexy tags above.
> 

> 
> Character growth takes time, and SO DOES PORN. These two are demanding an even slower slow burn than I planned for. This is going to take more than 8 chapters -- probably 10, maybe more. The plan is to continue aiming for Sunday and Thursday updates.

Nile hasn't talked to Booker in a full week now.

It's not that weird. Right? He wouldn't have any reason to know she's acting weird. It's not like they have a standing date or anything.

She opens her phone, looks at their text history. The last timestamp is from a few hours before her meeting with Daisy Johnson.

 **Nile:** I was today years old when I learned Napoleon's mummified dick was once a popular museum exhibit 🤢😂 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmhmPm9fsuo>

**Booker:** That is very disturbing and I loved every second of it

What's she supposed to say next? "Speaking of dicks, I've been dreaming of yours every night for a week now, wyd?"

There's an unopened cardboard box on her dining table that she could dig into if she needs a distraction. That would require getting off the couch and opening the box, each of which are manageable enough. One of the books inside is a Spanish/English dictionary, because the other book is apparently one of the foundational texts of academic code switching. Nile can pick up a sixth language, no big deal — she already knows all the letters in the Spanish alphabet, _and_ all but one of them you actually pronounce.

But opening her new copy of Borderlands/La Frontera means finding out why Booker so enthusiastically recommended it to her.

If all she's going to spend her Saturday doing is sitting on this couch losing her mind, she could just go back to the gym. Two-a-days were part of her life once upon a time. They could be again now if she feels like it. She could park herself on an elliptical and binge a cdrama until a gym employee gets worried and makes her take a break.

She thunks her head into a pillow and whines at full volume.

Her phone is still in her hand. This is ridiculous. She opens it, goes to her Favorites list, and clicks FaceTime before she can get any more nervous about it.

Deep breaths.

An interminable 30 seconds later, the "Calling..." screen changes to a familiar face. "Nile? Are you ok?"

She wasn't expecting Quỳnh to be the one to pick up. Nile smiles despite herself.

"Hey," she says. "I'm ok, it's not an emergency. Just hoping to talk to Andy, if she's awake?"

Quỳnh's face brightens into what can only be described as a dreamy smirk. "It's time she wakes up from her post-sex nap. Follow me." Quỳnh winks at the camera and starts to move around wherever it is they're staying.

Nile averts her eyes — far be it from Quỳnh to just pause her camera — and before long, Andy is awake and clothed and accepting her phone and a kiss on the cheek from Quỳnh. She looks a little confused, but happy to see Nile.

"Hey, Boss," Andy says. "What's up?"

"I'm sorry to call out of the blue, I just—" and she whines again. Fuck. She rubs at her eyes with one hand. "Andy, I need you to give me advice about something, and I need you to keep the teasing to a minimum, ok?"

"Of course," she says. "What's wrong?"

"I've been having sex dreams about Booker."

Shit, she said that fast. Why does she still feel like she's holding her breath?

Andy isn't saying anything. True to her word, she isn't even smirking. She looks like she's waiting for something.

Nile takes another few deep breaths. "I— Ok, it's not just the sex dreams. I have _feelings_ for him."

"Are you worried we're going to be upset with you?" Andy asks. "Because we're not. Not even Nicky would begrudge you this relationship if it's what you and Book both wanted."

Something about hearing Andy say the word "relationship" dislodges a tight spot in Nile's sternum.

"I'm worried," Nile says, "but it's not about y'all. And I'm grateful for that, I know how complicated this would be for you and Joe and Nicky. I'm worried that it's too soon. I don't want to fuck up his progress, and this whole London year was supposed to be about getting my head around this new life, I don't want to make that about some guy and his issues, even if—"

She doesn't even know what she just cut herself off from saying. Whatever had been making her feel like her chest was too tight is now tying her stomach in knots.

Andy lets the silence sit for a while. "I'm guessing you're talking to me because you haven't talked to him yet?" she asks, and Nile shakes her head no. "Talk to him. Worst case, he doesn't feel the same way. He's an idiot but he's not going to be an ass about that."

Nile's lips twist.

"This is not me being a jerk, I promise," Andy says. "Ok?" she prompts, and Nile nods. "Ok. What's the worst-case scenario?"

All of a sudden Nile gets the feeling that if they were face to face, Andy would be wrapping her hand at the back of her neck. She lets herself imagine it while she thinks about what she's really afraid of.

"I don't know," Nile finally says.

Andy smiles, small but warm.

They talk a while longer, and it's nice, but it doesn't click anything into place for Nile. It does take the edge off the tension she was feeling all morning. When Andy signs off to go get dinner with Quỳnh, Nile looks up movie showtimes.

She changes into the dress she'd bought on her birthday last summer, since it's finally getting warm enough, but with leggings, because warm in London is not like warm in Greece. She adds a bomber jacket and a big scarf she can wrap up in if it gets cold in the movie theater. Borderlands/La Frontera and the Spanish/English dictionary go in her bag alongside her water bottle and Arabic and Russian homework.

Maybe after the movie she'll just sit in the park and do her homework. But maybe she'll feel like treating herself to a nice dinner out, like taking herself out for a date. Or maybe she'll sit at a cocktail bar and see where the night takes her.

The point is to build a life for herself, even though she knows it's only temporary. So she's going to go out and live a little.

* * *

Nile's on the train back home from church the next morning when she feels her phone buzz.

 **Booker:** Hey! There's a sidewalk art sale in my neighborhood this afternoon, want to check it out with me?

She clicks the Twitter link he included and it takes her to a local art supply store's account and a flyer for the event. It looks fun.

This morning she didn't wake up in need of a change of underwear for the first time in a week. She's still not really sure what she's so afraid of, but whatever she was feeling yesterday morning seems to have lifted. How about she just spends some time with her damn friend and sees how she feels.

 **Nile:** sure I'm in! meet you there at 1400?

He sends her back a gif of a dog wagging its tail.

Sunday's her wash day, and she could wait until tonight like she usually does, but it's just past 1100. As long as the Tube doesn't randomly stop on her, she's got time to do her weekly goddess locs routine before she meets up with him.

When she gets home, she puts on a cdrama podcast Wendy had recommended, but she keeps losing track of it. She puts on a Bollywood movie on her phone instead and gathers up her loc brush, shampoo spritz bottle, and jojoba oil. Her mission for the next few hours: don't worry about whatever might come next.

* * *

It's a gorgeous afternoon and the art sale is a lot of fun. Her heart's in her throat when she hugs Booker hello, but she manages to shake herself out of it before too long. The sun feels good on her skin, she has no responsibilities until tomorrow, and she gets to enjoy some local art with one of her best friends.

There's a little painting that takes her breath away, a palm-sized abstract piece that reminds Nile so intensely of her mother that for a moment she considers buying it and sending it anonymously. Booker notices something's up, and by the time he gets close enough to ask her if she's ok, he sees the look on her face and just takes her hand. She twines her fingers in his and squeezes.

"Thank you," she whispers once she's done looking at the piece. "Reminded me of my mom." He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back before she lets him go.

A while later she's flipping through a rack of postcards, thinking about what Joe and Nicky might like, what Andy and Quỳnh might find funny, when she hears Booker call someone's name.

She turns to see a five-year-old running at Booker at top speed. "Mister Sea Bass!" the kid is shouting.

The nickname is so incongruous that Nile bursts out laughing.

The kid's parents are jogging to catch up, and they look like they've had a long afternoon of chasing this little whirligig, but Nile doesn't think their wide smiles are just to be polite.

Booker picks up the kid and swings her in his arms while she scream-laughs, her pigtails whipping around behind her.

_Oh._

What had she been so worried about? She'd been fucking worried about being Booker's only friend.

He hasn't mentioned people he spends time with, but she also hasn't asked. He has classmates, professors. Maybe he has hobbies she doesn't know about. Maybe he's one of those people who actually bothers to meet their neighbors.

The kid's parents have caught up and are saying their hellos by the time Nile gets her head together enough to realize Booker is waving her over to join him.

"Chris, Mina, this is Nile," he's saying as she walks over. "She's the friend from the States I mentioned."

He's talked about her to friends she didn't know he had?

"It's nice to meet you," Mina says. She gestures to her daughter, who's her spitting image, the same rich brown eyes, deep brown skin, and dark hair. "This little ball of energy is Laura."

"Hello," Laura shouts at Nile before she quickly turns back to Booker and raises her arms to demand another spin through the air. He makes a silly face at her as he scoops her up.

"Y'all look like you're getting your steps in today, huh?" Nile says.

"She's a handful," says Chris with the kind of smile Nile remembers seeing on her own father's face.

Laura has decided it's snack time, so Booker sets her down in front of the portable cooler Mina is unzipping. Nile can't look away from this enormous man crouching down beside this tiny child.

What a treat it must be, for apple slices vs. carrot sticks to be the toughest decision you had to make in a day, and Laura weighs her options carefully before going with apple slices. Booker stretches his back out a little when he stands and Nile has to look away.

"How do y'all know each other?" she asks, hoping for a distraction.

"We met at my somatic therapist's office," Booker says. "Chris and I got to talking after a few weeks of seeing each other in the waiting room. This little lightning bolt has been through some painful medical things, and after Chris let me cry on their shoulder about my own son, they invited me over for dinner to meet Mina and hang out with my little therapy compatriot." Booker smiles down at Laura. "Do you remember when we played Legos and we built the dinosaur castle?" he asks her, and she nods enthusiastically, grinning to show off a mouthful of half-chewed apple.

"Sébastien is great with her," Chris says. They thump Booker in the arm playfully. Nile thinks she catches a smirk on their face.

Clearly these people are important to Booker. She feels increasingly ridiculous for assuming he didn't have any friends other than her.

They chat while Laura powers through her apple slices, and as soon as she's done she insists they go see "the paintings of doggies!" Chris runs after her immediately, and Mina sticks around to say full-sentence goodbyes before catching up.

Nile can't help but smile in the face of all that cuteness. "They seem like really good people, Book."

"They are," he says. "I really lucked out, meeting them." Quieter, he adds, "I obviously couldn't tell them everything, so they think Jean-Pierre was my only child and that he died at age 14."

Nile takes his hand in hers and squeezes, almost without conscious thought, the same way he had with her earlier. Her brain kicks back into gear before she can twine their fingers together, and she forces herself to drop her hand.

She should just talk to him about her damn feelings.

Later, when they've seen all the art they want to see, he invites her over for dinner. Her heart is beating faster than is really necessary for the 15-minute walk to his place. Is she sweating?

Nile couldn't tell you what they talked about on that walk if you paid her.

"How does potato and beet gratin with bacon sound?" Booker asks as he pours her a glass of water.

"Yum," she says. "How can I help?"

She gets to work peeling potatoes and beets while he organizes the rest of the ingredients. He has vastly more practice slicing potatoes to an even thinness than she does, so they switch places, and she fries the bacon while he finishes prepping the veggies.

"Do you know how to make a roux?" he asks as she transfers the cooked bacon to a plate.

"Yeah," she says. "Cool if I use the bacon grease?"

He grins and hands her the flour.

Once the cast iron pan is in the oven, cheddar and parmesan sauce spread between layers of potatoes and beets that look like they'd been sliced by a mandoline, Booker gestures for Nile to make herself at home. She settles on one side of the couch while he sets a timer for the gratin and clears a few things off his dining table.

"It's funny I'm serving you bacon," he says, "because a few days ago I found out that my ancestors were Jewish."

"Oh! Wow, how'd that come up?"

He tosses her one of the books he just cleared from the table. The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot by Trudi Alexy.

"My mother gathered us all around a candle on Friday nights, and my wife did the same thing, and I didn't think anything of it until the other day when I was reading that for my Bodies Process the Holocaust class. It describes people in New Mexico in the 1990s doing the exact same thing. I looked it up, and France expelled its Jews 275 years before I was born. They could stay if they converted, and some did, and here I am."

He's been moving around the living room putting things away as he said all this. It's clear from his tone of voice that this is more than a funny anecdote.

"Wow," she says. "I had no idea. What were their names? Your wife and your— your mom."

"My wife was Mélanie. My mother was Simone."

"I'm glad you have this new detail about them. About yourself. How do you feel about it?"

He shrugs as he sits down next to her on the couch. "I still think God can go fuck himself. I still would've spent every waking moment of 1939 forging visas. I don't know that it changes anything, but I'm glad I know."

They both take a few deep breaths.

After a while, Nile says, "My Russian tutor is Jewish, and he keeps saying one of these days he wants to have me over for Shabbat dinner. I can ask him if it's cool if I bring you, if you want?"

Booker looks at her for a long moment. There's _that look_ again.

Wait. Is that— is he interested in her too?

Has he been sending heart eyes in her direction all this time, just waiting for her to say something first?

"I'd love that," he says, and the moment feels heavy with possibility.

Something changes in his face, and he gets up to check on the gratin. Ok. This is ok. Nile is going to use her damn words and talk to him. Probably tonight. Just not right now.

The oven closes with a clang, and Booker tells her it should be another 15 minutes or so before dinner's ready. He asks a few questions about her Russian tutor while he putters around the kitchen, and by the time he's back on the couch next to her, the mood has dissipated. Gossiping with her friend Booker about her new friends who think she's a bourgie future MBA is fun too, and way less intimidating.

Dinner is _delicious_ , the kind of delicious that means the table is silent for the first few minutes because they're both too focused on eating to say anything. Nile doesn't mind the quiet. It's cozy.

After a while, Booker seems to realize how long they've been quiet, and he starts talking about Laura and her parents and the time he's spent with them. His whole face lights up when he talks about them. Nile had no idea that stories about Legos could be this riveting.

She asks him about the other people he spends his time with. Mina and Chris and little Laura are definitely the ones he's closest with in this new life he's building, but there are others, so many others that Nile feels a little self-judgmental for being so worried about it. He has a few favorite study buddies among his classmate cohort, and there's a professor he's been meeting with about potential research collaboration. He's on a first-name basis with everyone on staff at his yoga studio.

He's even had a few semi-professional, semi-social meetups with the person he blackmailed to get him into this grad program. Which is... interesting.

The way he talks about making new friends sounds like he read it in a book, which she realizes he probably did. Hey, whatever works.

When there's a lull in the conversation, Nile says, "I finally got a copy of Borderlands/La Frontera. You were right, Spanish is easy after all this French."

Booker looks delighted. "Have you read much of it yet?"

"Just a handful of pages yesterday afternoon," she says. "I want to sit with it, I'll let you know when I'm ready to talk about it more."

He meets her eyes with an encouraging little smile.

"Bottom line," she says, "damn, Book. I mean that about you for recommending it to me, and about the book itself. It's really good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she says. "I don't think I ever once shouted 'for fuck's sake, y'all, I'm Black' in all that mess about the Corps and 'Nile needs to stop being an American imperialist.' I really, really wanted to, but they were _already_ coming for my dad, and I just... It felt like it would be off-topic, or, well, at least like the others might not get why it's extremely on-topic — even Copley, which, ugh, I love him but we do not talk about some things and I don't even know where to start. And then here comes Gloria Anzaldúa explaining myself to me like the contradictions could be a source of power."

Booker's encouraging smile has only grown. "I obviously don't have the life experience to really get it, but I'll listen whenever you want, if it helps."

"Thank you," she says quietly. "I'll take you up on that one of these days." It sounds like he read that little affirmation in a book too. Maybe now's a good time to ask him the other burning question that's been on her mind lately.

"Hey, uh, don't take this the wrong way," she says, and his brows start to furrow so she gestures that it's nothing to be worried about. "How did you get so woke?"

He laughs. "It was the way I could be useful to the team."

"Uh, what?"

"It's absurd when I put it that way, more of a Point A to point F situation. I was a pretty terrible soldier. I'll fight if I have to, and I've gotten good at it because I've had to, but I've always been really good at forgery. Counterfeiting, fake IDs, all the computer stuff once that came along, but what I'm really good at is fitting in.

"What the team really needed was somebody to make sure we could fit in wherever we were. The others did ok keeping up, especially Joe, he's the best educated of any of us until you. But once Jean-Pierre died and I joined them for good, keeping up with modernity became my job.

"So I kept up. Art, fashion, slang, science, politics, whatever. For the first time in my life I could afford to spend time keeping up with ideas. I read Marx and du Bois and de Beauvoir, Sun Yat-Sen, Arendt, Foucault, Ta-Nehisi Coates. I got to meet Edward Said at a talk in the 1980s. I'm guessing Andy might've mentioned I knew Emma Goldman?"

"Joe had quite a story to tell about y'all," she says, smirking.

Booker runs a hand over his face, but it seems to be sarcastic — he looks happy that Joe was willing to talk about him.

After a minute of smirks and giggles, he continues. "I read a bunch of shit I disagreed with too. I'll never get back all the hours I wasted on Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman. Reading Andrew Sullivan, at least — that was a lot more fun than it had any right to be. Have you been treated to Joe and Nicky's rants about self-hating modern queers?"

"You know, I'm not sure if I've ever actually told them that I identify as bisexual." Once she says it, she realizes it means she's now told Booker. She finds that the knot of tension that's usually in her gut for this conversation isn't there now. "I guess it just hasn't come up? My mom and my brother and like three of my high school friends are the only people I ever really came out to. Well, and Dizzy."

"She's the one who was there for—"

"Yeah."

"Were the two of you together?"

"Oh no. She's also queer, but it's super duper against the rules to date in your unit, and I love her but not like that. Loved." Nile bites her lip, hard. "Fuck, I'm sorry," she says, so softly. "I shouldn't have said her name. I'm still not ready to talk about it."

His eyebrows are drawn together tight. "Of course, mon coeur. Would it help if I distracted you?" Nile's eyes widen just a little at what that might mean. "I could tell you about some of the funniest cultural miscommunications I've had to field over the years," he says, and his eyes are so warm. _Oh_

She laughs.

Much laughter and secondhand embarrassment later, they take their empty plates back to the kitchen and start to clean up.

He washes, she dries, he takes back his cast iron pan because "I have a time-tested method, leave this to me." She ruffles his hair and steps back to let him do whatever it is that's such a specialized craft.

After a minute of standing there just watching him clean the cast iron, Nile asks, "Why grad school?"

"I wanted the structure. Something to keep me organized day to day, year to year."

"I get that," she says. "Is it helping like you thought it would?"

"Oui."

"I'm glad. Are you— given the circumstances, are you happy here?"

He finishes swiping a thin layer of oil across the pan with a clean dish towel, sets it at the back of the stove, folds the towel. He looks up at her from wiping his hands on another clean towel.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm being interviewed?" he asks, and there's a heft to how he says it.

Nile holds his gaze until she's sure she wants to say this. "Sorry for the third degree. I just—"

No more putting it off. She takes a deep breath. "I wanted to be sure before I tell you I've been thinking about kissing you."

He looks frozen in place. "Are you sure now?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah," she says. "I'm sure now. You interested?"

There's _that look_ again. Holy shit. It's been heart eyes this whole time. He wets his lips, just the briefest flick of his tongue, subtle enough that either it's unconscious or Booker's got _game_. "I think you know the answer to that," he says.

She tilts her chin up and leans into his space. It feels like time stops. She can barely breathe, barely think. Then finally his lips meet hers.

It's chaste at first, tender. And then all of a sudden it is _not_ chaste. 

He's crowding her into the kitchen counter, one hand at her waist and the other cupping her jaw. She takes it for the opening it is to get her hands on him.

"Oh," she lets out when he releases her mouth and starts to kiss down the side of her neck.

"Is this ok?" he asks against her neck. The vibration of his voice against her skin feels _so_ good.

" _Yes_ ," she says.

Her hands are all over him, he feels _so good_ , and she's about to lift up the hem of his henley when she realizes she should ask too. She hooks her thumb under the hem, brushing his hipbone where it's peeking out over the top of his jeans. "Is this ok?"

"We should—" and he—

Did Booker just _growl_?

He runs his nose up the line of her neck, plants one last kiss at the corner of her jaw, and then he's pulling away, just a little, just so he can look her in the eye. "We should make sure we're on the same page before we get too carried away," he says.

She smooths her hand over his side. She should say something. She'd _planned_ to say something. What was she going to say?

"You're very special to me," he says. "I want to see where this might go, how we might fit into each other's lives."

"I want that too," she says, because she _does_. "You're one of my favorite people, and I— I want—"

She squeezes her eyes shut. Why can she not fucking speak right now?

He huffs, and her eyes fly open, worried that she'd insulted him. But he's _smirking_. Then he's spreading those big, warm hands across her back and pulling her in close.

Nile breathes him in, lets herself get carried away in the kiss. His beard is just the right mix of scratchy-soft and his lips are so plush and he kisses her like he's starving for her. But it's not desperate or sloppy. He's— confident, in a way she feels like she hasn't seen in him before.

She _cannot wait_ to see where this goes.

Out of nowhere she remembers that day in the cafe after their museum date. That's what it was, wasn't it. They've been going on dates, all this time. He's kissing down her neck again, nipping at her collarbone, and she's remembering the look he gave her when he asked if she's the boss now.

She sets her hand in the middle of his chest and pushes just a little. Just to pause. He pulls back and catches her eye, tilts his head, but she's smirking to let him know there's not a thing to worry about.

She hops up onto the kitchen counter and wraps her legs around his waist to reel him in. His laugh feels so good against her neck.

Now that he's not quite so much taller she can run her fingers through his hair, kiss her way down his neck, bite gently at his earlobe. Her locs are loose around her shoulders and he hasn't touched them except to gently brush them aside so he has better access to kiss her neck.

He's slowly kissing his way down the front of her blouse but not making any move to take her clothes off.

There's no rush. They could just make out right here in his kitchen, and then say goodnight and wait for their next date for anything more.

Booker's kissing along the edge of her cleavage and she _does not want to wait any longer_. "This— take this off—" she says, tugging at the hem of his shirt. He chuckles into her sternum and _fuck_ they need to get their clothes off _right now_.

He backs away from her just enough to tear off his shirt and drop it on the floor. "Better?" he asks.

"Damn," she says, matching his smirk. "The last time I saw you with your shirt off it was less rippling abs and more exposed viscera."

His face shifts into the most adorable little smile. "We've been doing this a little out of order, I suppose."

"C'mere," she says. "Next order of business: buttons."

He gets her blouse off, mutters, "I cleaned the floors yesterday," then he drops it on top of his shirt and gets to work on her bra. She wasn't planning on getting naked tonight and she's wearing a pretty average t-shirt bra, but he's sliding the straps down her shoulders like they're made of silk and she's made of gold.

Nile can't even remember what panties she has on, she just knows they're _soaked_.

"Oh," she cries when he finally quits teasing and takes her bra off so he can get that perfect mouth on one of her nipples. "Fuck," she says as she digs her fingers into his hair.

"Come to bed with me?" he asks, looking up at her from under his lashes. Oh, he knows exactly what he's doing.

She grins, jutting her chin out a little in challenge. "Only if you carry me there."

So _he does_. He gets both hands under her ass and lifts her like she weighs nothing, and she's so glad for his weird little apartment with its doorless bedroom because in moments he's already laying her down on his bed. He doesn't waste any time getting his mouth back on her. _Fuck_ , she's so wet.

Oh God _damn_ , he's kissing his way down her belly. "I swear to God, if you're about to ask me if you can go down on me, _please_ , be my guest."

She thinks she may never get tired of feeling him laugh into her skin.

He bites at his lip while he gets her pants unbuttoned and unzipped, and it's equal parts adorable and—

 _Fuck_ , he just yanked her pants and her panties clear down her thighs so fast that her tits are shaking from the motion. She covers her face with one hand and moans.

"Hey," he says once he's tugged her pants the rest of the way off of her. He sounds _hungry_. She pulls her hand down from her face to look at him, and damn, he looks so good on his knees. "Tell me if you want me to do anything different, oui?"

"Mmm," she says. "Are you ok with my hand in your hair?"

His eyes go a little glassy. "Oui," he says, and it sounds like _please_.

He holds eye contact with her as he leans down between her legs to where she's dripping wet and desperate for friction. Just when his lower lip is about to graze her clit, he shuts his eyes and pulls back just enough so that he can _breathe in the scent of her holy fuck this man is an artist—_

Nile doesn't have any goddamn idea what noise she just made but it's making him chuckle into her thigh and she does not care and then _dear God his mouth is on her_.

She keeps one hand on her forehead like she needs it to ground her to reality, but she manages to grasp at his shoulder with the other, and _oh_ , he has nice shoulders. Broad shoulders that are currently holding her legs open wide as he kisses her pussy open-mouthed like he's trained for centuries just to do this.

The way he moans into her pussy is just— _Fuck_ —

It always takes her a really long time to come when she's with a new partner, and she knows she might not come tonight at all. Maybe he'll kiss and lick and suck at her for hours, for days, for however long it takes. God, it sounds like he _loves_ doing this. But when she wants to come and her body won't let her, it's hard not to get cranky about it, and she doesn't want that tonight.

She takes a few long, deep breaths and soaks in the feeling of his tongue circling her entrance and his nose grazing her clit. Then she grips his shoulder just a little tighter and says, "Do you have condoms?"

 _Fuck_ but she wants to ask him if he'll stay right there for however long it takes. She wants to ride his face. She wants to—

"In the bedside table," he's saying. He sounds _high_. She realizes her eyes are closed just in time to open them and catch him wiping his lower lip and chin with the back of his hand, holy fuck he's so pretty.

"You're so pretty," she says. "Take your pants off."

He's laughing like he cannot believe his luck. Happiness looks _so good_ on him. She meant to scoot up the bed to go looking in his bedside table for a condom, but she can't take her eyes off him.

And he knows it. He's blushing, but he can't really be shy, looking at her from under his lashes like that as he unbuttons his jeans. Can he?

They have a lot still to learn about each other. This is going to be so much fun.

He leaves his jeans unbuttoned but still halfway zipped as he slides off the bed to go fetch what turns out to be a brand-new box of condoms. "It's good to be prepared," he says, and oh, maybe he really is a little shy.

Nile hasn't had sex in almost two years now. She wonders how long it's been for him, if this box is new because he ran out last week, or if he bought this just because it was on one of his rebuilding-his-life checklists, thinking he would never open it.

Those are thoughts for later, because she wants to devote her full attention to watching him strip for her. God _damn_.

He looks away from her as he rolls on the condom, and _oh_ , he's biting his lip like he's trying not to come.

When he's all dressed up she takes his hand and tugs gently, and he lets himself be tugged on top of her. She kisses him deep, slow, lets them both get their bearings. Before long they're rolling their hips against each other. Nile gets a hand between them to stroke at his cock and he gasps into her mouth.

"Please, allow me," he says, voice full of gravel. She lets him go, plants her hand on his ass instead, and _fuck_ , she loves that he laughs this much in bed.

 _Fuck_ , he's lining himself up, and the head of his cock feels so good how he's rubbing it down her labia and around her hole, teasing her just a little bit. And then he's sliding in and she cannot fucking think anymore. Her legs wrap around his waist because all her body wants is to get closer to him. The hand that isn't digging into his ass finds the back of his neck and pulls him flush on top of her and God _damn_ his weight on top of her feels _so good_.

He's muttering into her ear in French, bracing himself with his palms just enough so he can slide in and out of her, and she can feel his quads and his ass and his whole torso working and it is the hottest thing she's ever felt in her life. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of her head, she thinks it would be nice if she could come too. But he feels so good and he sounds _wrecked_ and—

She feels his whole body tense into her and then relax. The stream of unintelligible French has stopped and all she hears is his labored breathing.

When he pulls out to take care of the condom, a tingle goes up her spine and across her skin and she is going to be a grown-up about this goddamn it but she _wants_ him.

"Come back here," she whimpers when he gets up to throw away the condom. Five whole steps away from the bed is too many.

Her hands are all over him the moment he's within reach again, and he snickers. "You want more?"

"I— I haven't, yet."

"Oh," he says, looking worried.

"S'ok," she says, "it takes me a while with a new partner. It's, uh, been just me for a while lately."

"Oh," he says again.

The thought of her touching herself seems to be _doing things_ to him.

"Yeah?" she says when she realizes why he's gone glassy-eyed. "Mmm, well in that case—"

She takes one of his hands and brings it to her breast, traces his fingers exactly where she wants them, circling and brushing so close to her nipple but not quite, not _quite_. He catches on quick. His thigh is resting between both of hers and _fuck_ he does not skip leg day but she wants his hands on her, she wants—

"Are you right-handed or left?"

He lets the pad of his right forefinger brush across the top of her nipple and holy _fuck_ that smirk ought to be a controlled substance. He knows exactly how good at this he is, doesn't he.

"In that case," she says, and then, " _oh_ —" Every single one of her nerves feels like it's on fire. God, this is going to be so worth the wait. "Keep doing that but with your other hand, you'll need your right to do the same thing with my clit," and she hopes she sounds a little more confident and a little less desperate than she feels.

Booker bites at his lower lip. "Gladly," he says. Then he starts to rake his hand down her torso, dragging across her skin with his thumb and leaving goosebumps in his wake. "You want me to tease you, oui?"

"Mmph," is all she can manage, because he's dragging his thumb so slowly down her mound, yes, right there, _fuck_ , he's doing _exactly what she asked_ , just before he's about to stroke right across her clit he drags his thumb down to the side instead. " _Please_ ," she says.

"God, you're so wet," and his voice sounds so full of wonder. He's teasing at her entrance, rubbing a knuckle along her lips, but he has not for one second forgotten her tits. He looks like he's starving for her, Nile thinks, just before he leans down to mirror this same tease with his tongue on the breast he doesn't already have a hand on.

It must be an hour, a decade before he _finally_ gets anywhere near her clit again and _fuck_ she thinks her body might let go the rest of the way, let her lose that last little bit of control she wants to give up so bad for just— just this one—

"Oh," she whimpers, "can you— _oh_ ," and she can't verbalize anymore but she can _show_ him what she needs. She releases one hand from where it's gripping into his hair and runs a knuckle across his cheekbone. He looks up, and _fuck_ , his hot breath against her skin—

"Like this," she says. She rubs her knuckle diagonally across the bridge of his knows, hoping he'll get what she means. "On my clit. _Please_. I'm so—"

 _God_ he gets _exactly_ what she means oh fuck right there **right there** she's gonna— fuck— she's—

Mmm. Uh huh. Yeah. This is— yeah.

Once that blissful blank floating lifts enough for her to open her eyes, she finds he's grinning softly up at her, head pillowed lightly on her stomach.

She grins back at him. "You take directions really, really well, Sébastien." His hips buck sharply, involuntarily, and _oh_ , "Hmm. I'm gonna ask you more about that later."

He turns his face to press a moan into her skin. "Dieu, ma reine," he says. "Please do."

They take a while to just soak each other in. Just when she thinks maybe he's fallen asleep against her belly, he lifts his head to catch her eye. "Will you stay with me tonight?"

A shiver goes up her spine at the thought of waking up like this.

"I'd love to, but I, uh, I didn't exactly plan on— that is—"

He looks so serious. She runs her fingers across his brow, smooths out that wrinkle.

"I don't suppose you have a satin hair wrap lying around here?"

"Ah," he says, and the heaviness of his brow is gone, swapped out for a little waggle. "I'm sure we can find something in my closet for you."

Oh _that_ is interesting. "Does the thought of dressing me up turn you on, Sébastien?"

"Everything about you turns me on, mon étoile." He takes her hand, presses an open-mouthed kiss to her palm. "And if you keep calling me that we are never going to leave this bed."

"Promise?"

Suddenly playful where he had been languid, he half-leaps out of the bed, nose twisting in the air in a fake-haughty expression. "You'll think me a strumpet if I give you everything on our first night!"

Nile's not too proud to admit it. She straight-up cackles.

She lets herself enjoy the view as he crosses the room and opens his closet. But better than looking at his stunning back, his thighs, his _ass_ is getting her hands all over him all over again, so she lifts herself out of bed to join him.

"Hm, what about this," he says. There's a deep green button-up shirt in his hand that reminds her a little of the shirt-dress she was wearing that night at Malik's show. Her fingers dig a little into his shoulder at the memory.

They were always headed here, weren't they. Someday she will be able to tell Nicky about this and he'll call it destiny.

Nope, that's not a right now thought. That goes right back to the dark corner of her brain where the not-right-now thoughts go.

The feeling of that wall of muscle across one palm as she runs her other hand through the fabric is— _fuck_ , could she go again, right now? Could _he_?

She takes a deep breath and says something responsible instead. "That'll work great, but it's a nice shirt, I don't want to ruin it."

"Priorities, ma reine," he says quietly, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

* * *

The next morning Nile wakes up to the feeling of strong arms around her, but for only a moment, because Booker is getting out of bed. Mmph. Why is he getting out of bed.

"Bonjour, ma biscotte," he whispers into her neck. He plants a soft kiss there, and then he's pulling away entirely, and this will not do, absolutely not — Nile rolls over, chasing the feel of him, fully intending to tug him right back here where she wants him.

He chuckles as he stands, and now Nile's awake, sitting up in bed and watching as he picks up a pair of track pants from the floor. He throws the pants over his shoulder and walks bare-assed to the doorway before turning around. "I'm making you quiche," he says. "Stay in bed as long as you want, I'll bring you coffee."

She lays back in the bed and groans.

By the time she makes a move to get out of bed, something smells amazing, and he's wearing the track pants — which she realizes, didn't he say that's what he wears most of the time?

She sees what looks like a pile of clean laundry stacked on a chair and pulls on a pair of boxers and an undershirt. She has to roll up the waistband several times so the boxers won't slide down her waist, and she knows he can see her through the lack of door, but they've discussed their mutual vanity, so she rolls up the shirt sleeves a few times and ties up the waistband in a knot just to complete the ensemble. The dress shirt hair wrap feels like it did ok — she'll leave it until she's had coffee.

"Quiche is in the oven," Booker says when she officially makes her way into the kitchen. "What do you like in your coffee when it's not an enormous overpriced mocha?"

"Milk and sugar, whatever you got is great," she says. "So you do own a track suit."

He doesn't say anything, and he looks — wait, shy?

"You said it's basically all you wear, but I've never seen you in this kind of thing. Sébastien, have you been dressing up to see me?"

His blush goes all the way across his face, to the tips of his ears, and _oh_ — down his chest as well. His apartment gets gorgeous morning sunlight, all the better to enjoy this blush. "Oui," he says quietly.

"Sweetheart, I'm flattered," she says, and she leans up to kiss him.

* * *

Nile goes home to freshen up before getting on with her day. She walks home, because no way is she getting her ass to the gym this morning, but she needs to get the wiggles out, channel all these feelings.

She pulls out her phone while she's waiting for a light to change, because there's one person who absolutely needs to be informed of this development right away.

 **Nile:** get you a man with husband training 😏💋😏💋 last night I told him I'm interested and he went down on me like he was made for it and then this morning he made me quiche

 **Daisy:** 😲😍😘😘✨✨  
**Daisy:** I was wondering if he'd touched your ungloved hand yet <https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/634842391156867072/1800s-sex-be-like-helps-you-out-of-a-carriage>

**Nile:** staaaaaaaaaaaaahp

Oh fuck, this is why Wendy had made that comment about Pride and Prejudice, isn't it.

Copley comments that Nile seems happy but he doesn't push for an explanation as to why. She smiles through all two and a half hours of their meeting weighing the pros and cons of various potential acts of ecoterrorism.

That night, Fatou takes one look at Nile and knows immediately. Malik high fives her and then starts lobbying his auntie to invite Nile's Frenchman to family dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lighting candles in secret is a documented thing among descendants of Jews who were forced to convert — [as recently as my lifetime, 500 years after the Iberian expulsions](https://archive.jewishcurrents.org/candles/). I couldn't find specific documentation of French Conversos and their descendants doing this, but [about 3,000 Spanish Jews came to Provence fleeing the Inquisition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_France#Provence) to join the existing Jewish community there, and a decade later France forced all its Jews to convert or leave. I haven't read The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot and I'm guessing based on reviews that it would make sense for this grad school class I've completely made up and that it contains the kind of descriptions of Crypto-Jewish rituals that would ring a bell for Booker's backstory that I've put a lot of research into but also completely made up.
> 
> More on [my Jewish Booker headcanon](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/632086237778509824/ok-its-jewish-booker-oclock-i-can-no-longer) and [why I've named his wife Mélanie](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/632181098479239168/ive-finally-decided-on-bookers-wifes-name-in-my). (Hint: "Oui, Shoshanna")
> 
> My original idea for this fic was about Booker starting on his healing by reading critical race theory and decolonial feminist texts. The more I developed the idea, the more I realized I wasn't interested in writing that evolution of Booker's from scratch. I wanted to write a version of Booker who's been reading about perspectives other than his own for a really long time, who's finally devoting time to healing from his family trauma. Here comes Nile who is so capable and so kind but has some flaws she needs to confront, and Booker can help. We've all read a million Book of Nile fics where Booker's the one in crisis and Nile's the one giving support. So here, have Nile getting first dibs on emotional support. [Queermermaids](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermermaids/) pointed out to me that Nile needs to read Orientalism just as bad as Booker does, and then I realized just how much Borderlands/La Frontera could help Nile.
> 
> Other thinkers Booker references, and works of theirs I'd recommend:  
> Karl Marx - don't bother reading Marx, read any intersectional feminist critique of Marxism from the past 30 years, I wish I had a good recommendation but no one thing is coming to mind  
> W.E.B. du Bois - The Souls of Black Folks is a forever classic  
> Simone de Beauvoir - same with The Second Sex  
> Sun Yat-Sen - anything about the [Three Principles of the People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Principles_of_the_People)  
> Hannah Arendt - Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil  
> Michel Foucault - The History of Sexuality  
> Ta-Nehisi Coates - his classic Atlantic piece [The Case for Reparations](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/), and because it's Jewish Booker o'clock, [this piece about antiblackness and anti-Arab racism in Israel and the Hebrew translation of Coates's Between the World and Me](https://www.972mag.com/between-ramle-and-me-reading-ta-nehisi-coates-in-hebrew/132437/)  
> Andrew Sullivan - he sucks, the Bad Gays podcast has [a great episode about why he sucks](https://badgayspod.podbean.com/e/episode-5-andrew-sullivan/)
> 
> Continued millions of thanks to [highlightcity_159](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlightcity_159) for French endearment school!  
> mon coeur = my heart (it's like sweetheart in English but it's only used for romantic partners, and Booker uses it here by accident before they've talked about their feelings)  
> ma reine = my queen, another endearment only for a romantic partner  
> mon étoile = my star, yet another endearment only for a romantic partner  
> ma biscotte = my biscuit/cookie
> 
> I've done EXTENSIVE research about Nile's hair, but I'm white and may well have still fucked things up. Shout out to [Loccessories](https://loccessories.com/everything-you-needed-to-know-about-faux-locs/) especially for all their resources about faux locs — support this small business if you can!
> 
> Inspiration for the green satin shirt Nile wraps her hair in:  
> <https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/spring-summer-2020-trends-for-men?image=5d13acef9a22c26bbe94961d>  
> <https://www.siesmarjan.com/products/sander-satin-shirt-forest-green-men>


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Pervasive references to some of the world's scariest and most difficult problems amid conversation about how our elderly friends might address them.
>   * Nile grieves her father in some detail.
>   * Nile is badly shaken after a mission saving people from human traffickers, a mission where she kills many people. The canon-typical violence takes place almost entirely off-screen, what's depicted of the violence is a brief overview, and what's more sustained is that Nile is very upset. She gets good support.
>   * Brief reference to US chattel slavery.
>   * Reference to alcoholism and discussion of treatment where someone with problem drinking makes an informed choice not to abstain from all alcohol.
>   * Several references to queerphobia, including brief mentions of tricky coming-out experiences and discussion of the AIDS crisis.
>   * Brief reference to the same trouble with eating while upset that came up in a previous chapter.
> 


"Hel- _lo_!" rings out from her laptop speakers, and _oh_ , Joe's enthusiasm warms her soul.

She grins at the screen. "Hey! How are you?"

"Nile, I could not be happier. We're going to stay in Bucharest for a while just to have more sex in the sunshine on this private balcony — I wonder if the hotel would let us buy this suite."

"Oh my _God_ ," she says, sister mode cranked up to 11. "Should I be prepared for Nicky's bare ass to appear behind you at any moment?"

"You should be so lucky!" he says. "No, he's out for a few hours. Promised me a surprise this evening for which he needs supplies—"

Nile interrupts with, "I am _not asking_ ," before Joe's eyebrows can waggle all the way off his face.

"And I wanted to have quality time with my favorite Nile."

"You promise?" Nile says, batting her eyelashes. "You've told me such grand tales of Egypt — am I really your favorite Nile?"

"You look so happy, kibdii. Are you in such a good mood just because you get to look at my beautiful face?"

Nile is flushing something fierce. She's in such a good mood because she's basically been on a sex vacation these last few weeks, and she's going to tell Joe, but not right this minute. Just in case he's upset about it. She knows he's not going to hate her, he's probably going to be thrilled for her — but no matter how understandable his reasons, Booker's bad decisions did get Joe tortured. His bad decisions got _Nicky_ tortured.

"You are very handsome," she says. And then she brings up the other big thing she's been psyching herself up to talk to Joe about.

Nile has been very busy these last few weeks, because in addition to tutoring and sculpting class and fencing and her church friend Bridget's birthday party and _the best sex she has ever had in her entire life_ , she has been reading.

God bless Gloria Anzaldúa and adrienne maree brown.

Here's where she's at: the world is a horrifying pit of misery, human beings are greedy amoral pieces of shit — and at the exact same time, human beings have stunning capacity to care for each other.

Her team's secret keeps them at arm's length from most of humanity, and that means they can't sit in a smoke-filled room and make the right decisions about what's best for the world. Not just that it's not possible — they're not _qualified_ to decide what's best for this world they live in but can't really _be a part of_ , not entirely. But they're uniquely able to give a strategic boost here and there to people like the ones who organized all those vans and therapists and lawyers for the kids they broke out of the ICE camp last June.

She can use her team's outside-the-lines nature as a source of strength. They're not subject to the same pressures that keep most mortals from putting everything on the line to build a better world. Nile is dead, legally speaking, which means she can't be sued, can't be put on trial for breaking laws in service of justice. She can be locked in a cage at the bottom of the ocean and _she does not want that_ , and she will not let that happen to anyone under her command. The secrecy that requires means she and her small team of exceptionally skilled doers of violence, exceptionally skilled chameleons across times and cultures, can sneak in and out of impossible situations and do things that will give a boost to those mortals who are taking extraordinary risks to build a better world in the daylight.

She and Copley spent a long time last year digging through the science of nuclear disarmament, and bottom line, that shit takes dozens of governments, hundreds of scientists, and a fuckton of land in which to bury radioactive ordnance for long enough that it decays to safe levels. They basically just set aside the whole topic because there was no point in discussing it further.

Nile's team can't point guns at enough people to rid the world of nuclear weapons. They _can_ , for example, point guns at enough people — or maybe better yet, take guns away from enough people — to ensure an election that will affect a government's position on nuclear disarmament will actually reflect the will of the people.

They can't point guns at CFCs. But Nile's already seen Gen Z throwing down to stop climate change. And she knows how different the US government would look if if weren't for voter suppression. Her team can, say, make sure that "unwanted" voters don't get their registrations scrubbed like that shit that happened in Georgia in 2018. Like that shit that's been happening to people who look like her for pretty much as long as they've been eligible to vote.

It's not foolproof. What she's talking about is worlds away from defending the rule of law, obeying the chain of command. She knows her heart is in the right place but there's always the potential for unintended consequences. No, it's not just that — there's the potential that she could make the wrong decision. She could wake up one morning and find herself on the wrong side of history again.

There's a lot they still need to work through.

But as a concept? Yeah. They might, finally, be getting somewhere.

Joe, beautiful sunshine man that he is, manages to sum up her solid 15 minutes of talking into a few clear sentences.

We fight climate change and resource hoarding.  
We protect people from slavery and genocide.  
We defend democracy and support movements for liberation.  
We make it a little easier for mortals to help themselves.

"I love you so much, Yusuf al-Kaysani," she says.

"These are your ideas, sadeeqah, I'm just making them rhyme."

Nile wipes at her eyes.

And then she takes a deep breath, digs her fingernails into the palm of her hand, and tells Joe that she's dating Booker.

* * *

"Good morning," Nile says, blinking awake to find a broad pair of hands holding a book in front of her. "You're bringing another woman into our bed already?"

Booker leans down to kiss her temple and then turns the page of the book he's apparently been reading over her shoulder while she slept in his arms.

"I don't think I'm Alison Bechdel's type, ma reine."

"Which one of hers is this?"

"It's a compilation of the Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip. Jenna demanded that I read it, and I quote, 'as soon as possible after the semester ends, I want your opinion on its depiction of bisexuality in an earlier era.'"

Jenna is Nile's favorite of all the school friends Booker has told her about, and Nile laughs, imagining the conversation. "She would absolutely flip her shit if you could give her the full-story answer to that question."

The book falls closed in his hands. He hums into her skin as he lays kisses across her shoulder.

"You said you had something to tell me last night, before we got distracted," she says. _Damn_ was that distraction worth it. But she knows he's working hard on being honest about what matters to him, and while she's absolutely not going to get into territory where she has to drag things out of him, she can meet him in the middle with the occasional encouraging nudge.

He lets go of the book and wraps her up tight in his arms like she's a big teddy bear. She can feel his chest expanding at her back with slow, steadying breaths. "Andy called me," he says into her shoulder, and Nile's breath catches. "She wants me to meet her in Cologne for a long weekend."

"Oh, sweetheart. That's great. How are you feeling about it?"

"Eighty percent grateful, 20% terrified. Quỳnh will be there too, there's a photography trade show she wants us all to go to. It'll be nice to get to know her without the threat of torture looming over us, unless, well," and he huffs. "We're all very aware that you can handle yourself, but I have no doubt they're still planning to threaten me on your behalf."

"That's adorable of them," Nile says. She runs her hand down his arm where it lays heavy across her middle and laces their fingers together. "I promise I was very clear about what a boy scout you've become when I asked Andy not to kill me for hopping into bed with the exilee."

The word hangs between them, not dampening the mood, just a reminder of the complications.

They'd given themselves 72 hours to just enjoy each other before sitting down fully clothed for an adult conversation about what exactly this is that they've started. Booker had flat-out refused to accept the exclusivity Nile had offered, because he wants her to be able to live her life and explore whatever she finds, though he'd made clear he's not interested in seeing anyone other than her. They can have this fight later, so she let it drop. They're going to continue spending time together as they have been, just with the addition of sex, and they're both going to make a point to continue pursuing other friendships and interests outside of each other. They're not going to see each other every day.

Booker had told her that he still has really bad days that she just hasn't seen yet. He doesn't want her to feel like she has to take care of him, and on bad days, especially when he hasn't slept well, he's worried he'll get withdrawn, or worse, try to push her away. The way he talks about it makes her much less worried than he is, but explaining your triggers in academic language on a good day is a lot easier than managing your triggers when they're happening, and he's probably right to worry. The thought he's put into this means a lot to her, and she says so.

Fortunately, so far they've both slept really well — like, fairy tales for tired millennials well — every time they've slept in each other's arms. In the new satin sheets they picked out together.

(Nile texted Daisy a picture of the freshly made bed, [this meme](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/632539232927416321), and "IT ME" after waking from her first night in the new sheets.)

Nile has seven more months in London. She and Booker are going to see where this goes, and if they're still doing this in half a year, they'll figure out what to do about it when Nile moves back in with people who very rightly do not want to see Booker until next century.

They agreed it's up to Nile how much to tell the family, and Booker insisted he'd understand if she wants to back off if it upsets her relationships with any of them. Which reminds her.

Nile breaks their easy quiet. "I told Joe."

"Yeah?"

"He's going to tell Nicky."

Nile can feel Booker holding his breath. "Oh," he says.

"Joe said Nicky might need all 99 remaining years before he's ready to talk to you, but you don't have to worry about finding a horse head in your bed." They both snort. "He also asked me not to tell Nicky he said that and recommended I never mention The Godfather to Nicky under any circumstances on pain of lengthy rants."

"That is very good advice I strongly recommend you take."

Nile chuckles at the _omg there is a story there_ in his tone. Then she says, quiet, "Joe's happy for us. He told me to tell you that he'd tell you to go fuck yourself, but making Nile happy is a better use of your energy."

Booker squeezes her tight. She thinks she feels dampness where his face is pressed into her shoulder.

"What would make you happy today, mon étoile?"

She wiggles back into him, humming. "Breakfast. Maybe we can sit on the couch and you can introduce me to Dykes to Watch Out For. And then I want to get you naked again before I have to leave for Arabic tutoring."

"As you wish, ma reine," he whispers into her ear.

She takes a moment to enjoy the tingle that zips up her spine. And then she realizes that means he _did_ understand that Princess Bride meme she sent him last week, and she's shouting, "Did you just?!"

* * *

The first Monday in June finds Joe and Nile jointly presenting her new strategy idea to the team. Quỳnh agrees to join for her first of the team's planning meetings, and after she and Copley say their introductory hellos, they get right into it.

It's a conceptual framework, Nile explains, up for debate and alterations as they see fit. A set of guidelines meant to give their individual missions a sense of direction. Meant to give them a sense of meaningful contribution over the very long term of their lives.

Joe reads it like a poem.

We fight climate change and resource hoarding.  
We protect people from slavery and genocide.  
We defend democracy and support movements for liberation.  
We make it a little easier for mortals to help themselves.

Nicky has to wipe away tears when the presentation is over. Andy's cheeks look like they hurt, she's grinning so wide. Quỳnh nods her approval with fire in her eyes.

Copley had heard many previous iterations of the brain-dump Nile had given Joe, and he's ready to pull up examples from their in-person meetings back in April. They talk through how this framework applies to potential near-term courses of action. They're unanimous about the proposed op at the Tokyo Olympics, now only two months away.

When she sat down, Nile had opened her latest notebook to a blank page, and it's still pristine as they wrap up. She's instead doodled extensively in Booker's copy of Emergent Strategy.

After they wave goodbye to Joe and Nicky and Andy and Quỳnh in their respective video windows projected onto the whiteboard wall, Nile pulls Borderlands/La Frontera out of her bag and offers it to Copley. "This helped me a lot in evolving my thinking," she tells him, "and I think you'd get a lot out of it too."

* * *

Booker had waited nearly 10 minutes so he could follow somebody into the building to avoid the awkward call-box conversation. Just one more deep breath now, and then he'll be ready to knock on their apartment door. 

He's so grateful Andy's willing to see him again, but now that it's happening, the part of him that wants to hide under a rock for a thousand years is shouting at him to turn around and run away.

Once he finally knocks, Quỳnh answers the door, and she greets him with a wide smile and a hug, neither of which he was expecting. He returns both with enthusiasm.

"She's on the balcony," Quỳnh says. "Good luck."

He can't stop himself from asking, "Is she armed?"

"Always," Quỳnh says, smile like a razor's edge.

Booker pays close attention to how his ribcage expands with his breath as he walks out to the balcony. Seeing the woman herself brings home just how hard this is going to be to say.

He steps out onto the balcony and slides the door shut behind him. Andy turns from where she's leaning against the railing, and they just look at each other for a long moment.

Finally, Booker forces his shoulders to drop, sets his jaw, and says, "I'm so, so sorry."

"I know you are," she says.

"No, I don't think you do. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was still dreaming of Quỳnh."

The way her face changes hurts every bit as much as he was bracing himself for.

"How often?" she asks.

"With the exception of really bad deaths and when I was so blacked out it should've killed me, every night."

Andy sighs. "Jesus, Book." She turns and stares out across the city, watching lights blinking on in homes and across the lines of cars as the sky darkens, but she doesn't really take any of it in. Booker is frozen in place, breathing only thanks to long practice.

"I'm sorry I made you feel like you had to hide it," Andy says, still facing out towards the setting sun. "If I'd looked past my own guilt for five seconds..."

"We're all alive on dry land now," he says. His mouth quirks up into the barest hint of a smile. "I suppose that's all that really matters." He moves to stand next to her at the balcony, and they look out at the skyline in silence.

"This thing you've started with Nile," Andy says. "It's not like what you and me tried, I hope?"

"I love you, Andy, don't ever think I don't."

Andy lovingly punches him in the shoulder. "I'm not fishing, dumbass. Nile can take care of herself, but she won't mind a little backup. Are you treating her how she deserves?"

He's quiet for a long moment. "I want to believe Mélanie would give me her blessing."

"Oh, Book." She pulls him in for a hug. "I'm so happy for you."

"I can only hope I make her a tenth as happy as she makes me," he mutters into her shoulder.

They pull apart slowly and Andy keeps her hand on his back, rubbing circles across his shoulders. "If I remember right, I'm sure you do," she says with a wink. He rolls his eyes and elbows her in the side. "But really though, from what I can tell you're good for her too. It's not rocket science where she's getting these new ideas from. You were always so insistent that you weren't just reading feminist texts to pick up chicks."

He snorts. "She would've gotten there on her own, sooner or later. Merde, Andy, she's so smart."

They're quiet for a minute, and then he looks up, eyes slightly widened. "How much exactly did you tell her about Frida and Diego?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she says with a grin.

They have a good weekend. Amazing food, drinking because it's fun and it tastes good and not because they're sad. Lena Andrews toyed with and then abandoned the idea of becoming a beer snob, but Quỳnh _loves_ modern beer, and she insists on avoiding the kind of drunkenness where you can no longer enjoy the taste of things.

Watching Andy take in the photography trade show is bittersweet for Booker. This is exactly the kind of thing the team left to him for 200 years, an unspoken assumption that the young one would handle new technology on his own — an assumption he may have misinterpreted, it turns out. Quỳnh is fascinated, delighted, gluttonous in how she soaks up all the beautiful things about the future, and there's Andy right next to her, enjoying something she could personally take or leave just because it makes someone she loves happy.

Booker forces himself to take note of the fact that Andy is here because _Quỳnh asked_.

He is going to learn how to ask for what he needs if it kills him. And then he's going to wake up and keep doing it until he really trusts the love that people offer him, until he really believes he's worthy of their love.

And their minor heist at Bayer headquarters goes smoothly — no kills, and Andy makes it out with just a few minor bruises. Nile is going to love her early birthday gift.

* * *

"Hey, babe," Nile calls as she unlocks the door. Booker gave her a key last week and it makes her smile every time she sees it.

"Bonjour," he calls from the bedroom. She hears some shuffling and then he's in front of her, wearing a plain t-shirt and track pants. He looks like he's been tugging at his hair all morning, and there's a pencil behind his ear. "To what do I owe this pleasure, mon étoile?" he asks.

"I finished The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, and I've been running errands all morning and I thought I'd use my new key and return it real quick," she says, pointing to where she'd set his book on the table. "I've got my meeting with Copley in a little while, and you look busy, I won't stay long."

"Stay as long as you like," he says. "My grant proposal can wait. Can I get you anything?"

"Coffee?"

"So predictable," he says as he goes to make a fresh pot.

A few minutes later, Nile has her face pressed into his back, eyes closed, enjoying the restful moment after a busy morning and the feel of his muscles gliding as he scoops out coffee grounds and fills the water reservoir. He's so solid in her arms.

"Did you fall asleep back there?" he asks, and she says no, but it's grumbled into his back in a way that does not help her case.

She takes another few breaths to soak in the feel of him before pulling back. "I'm awake!" she says, and she stretches her arms above her head as if to prove it.

Booker turns around and leans against the kitchen counter, but he doesn't stay there long.

"This is cute," he says, tugging lightly at the zipper of her hoodie as he steps into her space.

"Lena Andrews wears only the finest matching athleisure ensembles," she says airily. "It's a far cry from my days of olive drab on beige on beige."

"I'm sure you looked gorgeous in that too," he says, and then he's kissing her.

Nile has forgotten all about coffee. She checks the clock on the microwave to make sure she won't be too too late for her meeting with Copley, then she slides her hands up under Booker's shirt.

"Oh yeah?" he asks. "What about your meeting?"

"I've got 15 minutes," she says. It would be more responsible to leave in 10, but Copley will forgive her.

"I can work with that," Booker says, and he backs her against the nearest wall.

It's the easiest thing in the world to get lost in kissing her. She always smells good, but she smells _amazing_ like this, fresh from the gym and a morning of being out in the world. She smells _alive_. The whole world is new when he's with her.

He tugs at the zipper of her hoodie again, this time with intent. "May I?"

"Please," she says, and she's tugging at his t-shirt so he tears it off himself quickly, glad to have it out of the way so he can focus entirely on her.

The zipper pulls down smoothly and he gets his hands on her warm skin. He holds her around her ribs, sliding up to her back, fingers twining in the complicated straps of her sportsbra.

Someday he's going to see what she thinks about him lacing her up in a corset. Maybe she won't be into it, and that'll be ok. But maybe she will be. Someday he'll ask. They have time.

They do not, however, have much time right now. He pushes the hoodie off her shoulders and presses his index finger to the scooped neckline at the top of her bra. "Help me get this off of you?" he asks, and she pulls it over her head in a swift move he doesn't quite follow. Mystifying, modern underwear, but she wears it so well.

He wastes no time getting his mouth on her breasts. She's so _sensitive_. It's intoxicating. He's learned well how much she loves to be teased, so he mouths kisses in concentric circles around her left breast, getting closer and closer to her nipple, and then just as he's about to close his lips on the spot where she's making it very clear she wants him, he pulls away and starts all over again with her right breast.

She's starting to grab at his ass, hiking a leg up around his hips like she wants him to fuck her against the wall. Which he would _love_ to give her. But they're on the clock, and he's got a better idea.

He's closing in on her nipple again, and this time he lets his tongue graze it, starts to close his lips around it, and then pulls away with a puff of hot breath and drops to his knees.

He vaguely notices that the criss-crossing straps along the sides of her leggings match the straps of her bra. He vaguely notices that he's rock hard and leaking in this old pair of track pants. Nothing matters but the feel of her hands in his hair and the _noises_ she's making and the way she says _please, God, sweetheart_ when he looks up to get her permission to get these leggings out of the way.

 _Fuck_ she smells amazing. He could wait the extra few seconds so she can step out of the leggings he's just yanked down with no finesse, but _mon Dieu he is done waiting_ and she must see it in his face as he leans up to kiss where she's _glistening_ wet because she laughs and spreads her knees apart, heels still together, like a blasphemous plié.

He is thrilled just to be her friend, just to be near her. The way she's wriggling against his face while making no move whatsoever to step out of her leggings is giving him ideas for all kinds of things they could get up to in the— he doesn't want to even entertain the idea of how long they might have together, how long she might grant him the pleasure of her company.

All that matters right this second is _he has his mouth on her pussy_ holy fuck she tastes indescribable, she's incandescent, he can feel her moans vibrating all the way through her, she's _telling him what she likes_ with every whimper and tug of her hand in his hair, he is the luckiest rat bastard who has ever lived, he could suffocate against her and he would wake up and beg for her to ride his face again.

They probably only have a minute or two left. He lost the self-control to tease her the second he got her pants off, so now for another thing he's learned she likes. He gives her ass one last squeeze with both hands, then in a move he might be proud of if he could think of anything other than _her taste_ , he reaches up to cup one breast with his left hand while he crooks the first two fingers of his right hand against her entrance.

She _shrieks_ "Please," and he feels like he's flying, he's laughing as his tongue flattens on her clit and he slides his fingers home.

It doesn't take long now. It's almost meditative, crooking his fingers in towards her for two beats, press and hold for two beats, relax for two beats, and again, wave after wave. Maybe sometime they'll see how long she can go like this, how many times in a row he can make her come. Here and now, he keeps a steady pace with his fingers and he wraps his lips around her clit like he's blowing her, tongue pressing gentle but firm against the underside, sucking _just enough_ that— _oh_ how he loves to hear her fall apart.

He pulls away once he feels the telltale fluttering against his fingers, and he can't help quickly sucking his fingers into his mouth before he wipes at his chin and rests his cheek against her thigh to wait while she comes down from her orgasm. He's _aching_ hard, but from this position he can see the clock, and their 15 minutes are almost up.

This could be a different kind of fun.

He stands and gives her one deep, long kiss. "Go get cleaned up, ma minou. I'll make you a coffee to go," he says, and then he pecks her on the lips and walks away before she can pull him back to her.

When he glances at her over his shoulder, she's still leaning against the wall, leggings still around her ankles, jaw slack, eyes fierce.

"It wouldn't do to make you late for your meeting," he says, smirking. He turns back to the task at hand, opens his cabinet to look for a travel mug. "I'll take care of myself after you're on your way," he says, focused on pouring her coffee. "It won't be the same, but I'll be thinking of you." He hears her _whimper_ and it's the sexiest thing he's ever heard in his entire godforsaken life.

"You're gonna pay for this later," she whispers in his ear as she passes him on her way to the bathroom.

She leaves his place with one last searing kiss and a pointed, "Bye, Sébastien." He doesn't make it to his bedroom, certainly not all the way to his sex toy drawer, before he's got his hand on his dick. He palms at the head to spread around the precome, because he could barely get the door closed, there is no way he's crossing his entire flat to go get lube.

He is 243 years old but he feels nineteen again.

He imagines picking her up and fucking her against the wall as he brings himself off with quick strokes. He stands there, forehead against the door, breathing hard, for a long minute after.

* * *

Nile is seven and a half minutes late to lunch with Copley. This restaurant is as casual as the last place where they'd done a working lunch had been fancy, so Nile doesn't look out of place in her athleisure, and she's not exactly messing with a precise reservation time.

The second Copley sees her, he bursts out laughing, and he doesn't stop until the server approaches their table.

Once they've ordered — jerk chicken and plantains for both of them, Copley swears it's the best in the city — he's calmed down enough to speak. There were a few abortive attempts earlier, but he was laughing too hard.

"I see you're having a good day," he says.

"Oh shut up," she says without heat. Her cheeks are on fire so there's no heat left for her words.

"I wanted to see how long it would take you to say something, but I give up! You assigned me to keep tabs on him — were you ever going to mention it, or were you planning to pretend indefinitely that I didn't know?"

"James Tiberius Copley, do you have video cameras in Booker's apartment?"

The jackass _winks at her_. "Kidding," he says almost as soon as he's done it. "No, I do not have surveillance of any kind inside Monsieur Guerin's flat," he says, and his tone holds a touch of the formality from their early video calls, a year and a lifetime ago, only now deployed for maximum teasing. After a moment, he adds, "Tiberius?"

"I needed the full government name but I couldn't remember yours, I'm a terrible spy" she says, deadpan.

"If your mission were to get literally anyone on the face of this planet to believe you didn't have the best sex of your life this morning, then yes, you would be a terrible spy."

"Actually," she says, thinking back to last week before she can stop herself. Her brain catches up and she doesn't finish her thought, but it's too late.

"Ha! I knew it!"

Nile realizes all of a sudden that _he looks proud of himself_.

Wait.

"Ok, this is the moment I start calling you James. Jimmy, maybe. Jimbo? What's the nickname you would hate the most?" She's glaring at him but she's grinning too, in disbelief, in satisfaction that she figured it out, a little bit in gratitude. "You found my apartment for me. You found me tutors who would cause me to be out and about in certain neighborhoods. You _engineered_ this."

"I can neither confirm nor deny," he says with a prim smile that quickly devolves into another long laugh.

* * *

Nile had been running around all morning doing errands as a favor to Moustapha in preparation for Fatou's 60th birthday party this weekend.

She's bringing Booker to the party.

She's excited to show him off, and she's excited to introduce him to these people she's quickly grown to love. She's more than a little nervous too. And her heart stopped for a moment when she realized someone was liable to tease him about his plans for marriage and babies with the sublime Lena Andrews, so tonight she needs to tell Fatou that her new boyfriend is a widower who has also lost a child.

"Oh, ma petite belle. I'm so sorry to hear that," Fatou says, and she wraps Nile up in a big hug. Nile doesn't realize quite how stressed she was about it until her eyes fill with tears.

True to her word, by the time Saturday rolls around Fatou has ensured that everyone who might make such comments to Nile's Frenchman knows why it's important that they don't. Many people tease Booker mercilessly for being so obviously smitten with their Lena, and it's all great fun, triggers successfully avoided.

Nile insists on bringing homemade American-style biscuits to the party. They're a hit, and she spends all night fielding questions along the lines of "why are these scones so odd?" and explaining that her boyfriend who calls her ma biscotte all the time had never had a real American biscuit.

She has to leave out a few lines for the mortals, but she does tell the full story to Copley (that is, Jimbo, The Spy Who Got Me Laid, as Nile now exclusively calls him to his face). It goes something like this:

_Why do you keep calling me your biscotte?  
Because you're so sweet.  
Biscuits are a savory food why am I on this continent have you ever even had a real biscuit??  
I've had hardtack if that counts?  
THAT DOES NOT COUNT OH MY GOD WHERE DO YOU KEEP THE FLOUR I AM MAKING US BISCUITS_

Anyway, Booker now loves real American biscuits, and nobody has kicked anybody out of bed on account of crumbs.

Malik brings Gwen to the party, and every time Nile tries to tease him about it, he cuts her off with increasingly over-the-top compliments about her new braids. It's the most non-regulation cornrow style she's ever had, a dramatic mix of wide and narrow braids mimicking a side-shave across one side of her head and cascading over her other shoulder, and Malik doesn't know she was a Marine but he sure as hell knows she appreciates his salon recommendation.

Fatou's birthday party is the kickoff for a whirlwind summer.

The following Friday, Nile brings Booker with her to her Russian tutor's place for Shabbat dinner. Yakov and his granddaughter say blessings over candles and wine and braided bread, and it's all new to Nile, but there's something in Booker's face that tells her he's recognizing a thread of it from a very long time ago.

Within ten minutes her tutor is insisting Booker join the others in calling him Yasha. Nile had given him the highlights — old friend, now boyfriend, newly discovered Jewish ancestors — and he peppers Booker with questions in between explanations of the blessings and stories about moving here from the freshly-collapsed Soviet Union and gossip from his grocery co-op.

It feels sacred in a way that's intangibly but crucially different than everything Nile has ever thought of as sacred.

At one point Yasha's granddaughter, Talya, asks Booker if he's tried going to a synagogue, and he says no, he's an atheist. "So am I, boychik," Yasha says, "so's every Jew I know, you'd have to be crazy not to be." He throws a "no offense" to Nile and she waves it away with a smile.

She doesn't really get it, but maybe she doesn't need to. She sees this hitting Booker where he lives, somewhere deep down and long buried, and she feels honored to be witness to it.

Before they leave, Booker and Yasha exchange numbers, and they promise to make plans again before Yasha's wife's yahrzeit in September.

Mina, Chris, and especially little Laura had already planned to drag Booker with them to London Pride at the end of June, and when they hear that he and Nile are dating, there's enthusiasm from all involved to make a day of it as a group.

Laura runs around all day in unicorn facepaint telling everyone who will listen, "My mum and my obi love each other isn't that beautiful!" She collects the free stickers on offer like an absolute fiend, and Booker consents to her putting a little bisexual pride flag on the apple of his cheek. "It moves when you smile, Mister Sea Bass!" He smiles _so much_ around this little tornado.

Booker insists that, as the tallest of them, he ought to be the one to boost Laura up on his shoulders to watch the parade go by. It means a lot of her squealing directly into his ear. It's extremely worth it.

Mina and Booker bond over being in relationships that the outside world doesn't necessarily see as queer, and Nile hadn't really thought of it that way — _I am on a Tall White Man's arm in public_ is pretty much always the thing she's most aware of about how strangers might see her relationship. She and Chris talk about the mixed blessings of coming out to Black parents. Chris explains how they picked Obi, Yoruba for parent, when Mina got pregnant and it finally sunk in for both of them that this was really happening and the baby would need something to call Chris.

"And yes, also for Obi-Wan," they say. Nile grins.

That night is the first time she and Booker share a bed but don't have sex. Nile collapses on top of him, fully clothed, _exhausted_ , still awake only because of how hard he's laughing at her. "You are so hot hanging out with that sweet little girl, but _ouch_ ," she mutters. She skips the gym the next day too.

Booker asks her to save the date for a French theatre festival on Bastille Day, which she does happily, but her gut clenches when she realizes Fourth of July is only a few days away. He asks her what's wrong, and she bursts into tears.

It had occurred to her that everything in her life has been going a little too well lately.

She sobs on his shoulder about how she's only now realizing that in the rush of those heady first few weeks of them seeing each other, she'd forgotten all about Memorial Day. She hadn't done _anything_ to honor her dad. She's made leaps and bounds of progress since the spring in letting go of the World's Policeman mindset the USMC had instilled in her, and she can admit that particular tactical choices in the Afghanistan war were unwise, but the idea that— that—

It may take her as many years as it took Nicky to really come to terms with her first war.

Booker holds her while she cries, and a few days later he suggests a few things they could do on the 4th. The one she picks is a trip to a bar as similar as he could find to the one in Paris where he'd had his revelation nearly a year ago now. Overpriced American bourbons and ryes, cheeseburgers and "fries" with "ketchup", the works.

By now he's talked to her about it, that his fucked up relationship with alcohol wasn't a chemical dependence, it was an emotional one. Rehab for a chemical dependence wouldn't fix it, even if he could afford the risk of an inpatient medical facility, if he finished the treatment program with his soul still in tatters. He could quit drinking entirely, but it's such a social thing, and their secret cuts off so many social avenues already. So he's working with his somatic therapist on having one or two drinks occasionally and noticing how his body feels.

Nile was too young, then too broke, then too deployed to develop much of a taste for booze in her first life, but she remembers her mother would give her father a nice bottle of rye on his birthday. They spend the evening of the 4th with cheeseburgers and whiskey flights. Nile tells stories about her dad and Booker talks about good memories he has of the United States. Three separate stories involve stealing bourbon from slave owners he and the team had killed — he's not bragging, he swears, they're just really happy moments from an overwhelmingly ugly time, you know?

Stories of her dad inevitably turn to all those birthdays and Easters and Christmases and school recitals where he would go shopping with her for dresses. 

After she has a good cry over not having any pictures of her and her dad when she was little, she tells Booker about the new dress-shopping tradition she started with Joe last summer. He doesn't flinch at the mention of Joe, because he is a sweetheart, though she can see him moderating his breathing while they talk about it. He encourages her to find a way to keep up the tradition this year.

She spends a few hours on her birthday eve roaming through a boutique with Joe looking at dresses with her over FaceTime. It's not the same as having him with her in person, but he and Nicky are in Delhi, so a quick trip isn't in the cards. It still feels so special to have his opinion. She gets a lime green dress that covers her from collar to wrists to ankles but is paper-thin and skin-tight and dramatic as all hell. It's sexy and sculptural and perfect.

On her birthday, Booker takes her to see a new Yinka Shonibare piece at the Wellcome Collection, Refugee Astronaut, a stunning encapsulation of everything she's been wrestling with all year in a single work of art. ["The refugee astronaut is the reverse of the colonial instinct of the astronaut – someone who is going out to conquer the world," says the artist about the piece. "What you have here is a nomadic astronaut just trying to find somewhere that's still habitable."](https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/XYofFREAACQAp-Vl)

They go out for a romantic candlelit dinner but they have skip dessert due to the urgent need to run home, tear each other's clothes off, and repeatedly take each other apart over _four. goddamn. hours._

Nile is, at this particular moment, the luckiest woman in the universe.

Through all of this flurry of activity, Nile is hard at work with Copley and the team planning their upcoming mission, and Booker is fitting in meetings with his favorite professor and prep work for their upcoming research trip. They'll once again both be in the same city for completely unrelated reasons, only this time they know in advance and they can look forward to sharing a hotel room.

* * *

The table is covered in maps, shopping lists, fake IDs, surveillance photos, the usual riot of op logistics papers. Andy looks up from the event schedule she's annotating and grins wickedly. "Hey Nile, you know how [the Olympics distributes thousands of free condoms to the athletes](https://time.com/5137272/condoms-at-olympics/)? Yeah guess whose idea that was."

"Oh yeah!" Joe says. "Surprised we haven't told you this story yet. Nicky beloved, get back here, it's time to brag to new boss of our heroic deeds!"

They're in Quỳnh's new house in Hanoi getting ready for Operation Ruin a Trafficker's Day, their own personal opening ceremonies to the 2020 Olympics.

Nile will never, ever, not as long as she lives be tired of Nicky's baking. He enters the dining room with his second batch of [bánh bò](https://www.196flavors.com/vietnam-banh-bo/) of the trip, and Quỳnh grabs the first one, takes a bite, declares it adequate, and grabs four more. Nile quickly grabs a few for herself.

Telling stories to both Nile and Quỳnh at the same time proves to be quite the experience for all involved. Quỳnh has seemingly-infinite context on Andy, Joe, and Nicky as people, Nile has an American public school education and half an Associate's Degree providing her a broad but sometimes thin sociopolitical context for the centuries Quỳnh missed, and between them sits Joe, trying to explain the significance of his painting an extremely homoerotic mural of Nicky as Saint Sebastien in a hard-to-miss place near a major venue of the 1984 Olympics.

They'd moved to Los Angeles in 1979 for some reason neither can remember, ended up staying a while, and suddenly found themselves in an epicenter of the AIDS crisis. Within a few devastating years they both had jobs as hospital orderlies, holding the hands of patients most medical professionals wouldn't touch.

Joe and Nicky tell the story in tandem, Joe with the cinematic scene-setting and Nicky with the blistering one-liners. She's reminded yet again of how deeply she loves these people

Ten days later, Nile has taken the lives of dozens of kidnapping rapist pieces of shit who are still children of God but whose deaths were necessary. More than two thousand people, mostly girls, so many of them unimaginably young, are home safe or on their way back to their families after the team intercepted traffickers in Hanoi, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, and then here in Tokyo.

Tonight she and Joe threw every single crew member off the sides of a ship that Andy and Quỳnh then loaded up with supplies and turned around and took straight back to Manila.

Joe linked up with Nicky and they took off to track johns to yet more locations where more people may be trapped and in need their help. Copley got to work immediately ID'ing johns, noting which of them have a history of things like tax fraud that governments sometimes actually bother to address, noting which ones might make good targets for some redistribution of hoarded resources.

Tomorrow morning Nile will meet up with Joe and Nicky to review tonight's intel and build a game plan for the remaining phase of the mission. Tonight, it was all Nile could do to head to her hotel.

Booker has been in Tokyo for a week already. He's assisting his mentor on her research project, interviewing athletes about their experiences of coping with trauma through sports. Tonight he sat in on her interview with [Yusra Mardini](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5KAB_sWlm8) and first thing tomorrow they're meeting with [Aly Raisman](https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/news/gymnast-aly-raisman-will-not-participate-in-2020-tokyo-olympics/).

When Nile lets herself into the hotel room she finds him on the floor with his eyes closed. A notebook and his battered copy of Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox sit open beside him.

"Hey," she says quietly.

He opens his eyes and smiles at her. "Ma foi," he says. "I'll be done in 5 minutes or so. Have you eaten?"

"No, I should probably do that," she says, though the thought of food turns her stomach. "Take your time, I'll be in the shower."

Her hands are shaking as she closes the bathroom door. She'd already changed out of her bloody and waterlogged tac gear, but trying to take off her tank top and breezy tourist pants suddenly feels near-impossible. Girls from the South Side get caught up in shit like that all the time. A different life and that could've been her on one of those ships. And every life she takes, no matter how necessary—

Her eyes well up and there's a lump in her throat and she needs to _breathe_ goddamnit.

She sees on the counter that Booker has set out a box of baking soda and a shallow plastic basin.

The shit that this op put in her hair will come out with the cowash he also set out for her, and she's got a salon appointment for when they get home to take out these braids and install something new. But it warms her to know that he thought of this. She didn't pack a bag for tonight — her gear is stashed with Nicky and Joe where she'll pick it up tomorrow, because Booker said he'd get her set up for tonight.

Deep breaths. She steps into the shower and lets herself cry her guts out under the spray. She can't stop every terrible thing that happens on this planet, but she's doing what good she can with all this life she's been given. Right now what she can do is get cleaned up and let herself rest.

Half an hour later she comes out of the bathroom in a soft hoodie and rolled-up track pants to find Booker eating a poke bowl. The little dining table by the window is covered in food. A green smoothie, a fruity-looking smoothie, a vending machine's worth of Japanese junk food, protein bars, wasabi peas, fucking Takis how the hell did he find those here—

"I wasn't sure what you'd be in the mood for. I'll run back out and get you one of these if you'd like," he says, gesturing with his chopsticks. "Want a bite?"

Deep breaths.

"Bless you, mon nounours," she says. "But stay where you are. What's in that smoothie?"

While she eats, he tells her about his first week in Tokyo, the food he's tried, a little bit of what he's allowed to share about the study he's here for. Two days in he slipped up and now his professor knows he's a lot more fluent in Japanese than he let on, but she bought that he was just being humble and their counterpart at Tokyo Tech didn't show her surprise at Booker's century-old vocabulary.

Nile is glad to let him gush about all the physiology-neurobiology-psychology stuff his research here has implications for. It's adorable.

Some of that stuff is probably highly relevant to the tightness in her esophagus and the twinge in her wrist as she holds the plastic container of wasabi peas. She'll talk to him about it, maybe ask him for some book recommendations when they're back in London, but if she looks at any of it too closely right now she's going to spill these peas all over the floor and not be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning and— Yeah. Not right now.

After they're both done eating, he offers her a scalp massage, which feels _amazing_ , and before long she's twisting around in his lap so she can kiss him.

"I'm sorry," she says between kisses. "You feel so good," more kisses, "but I don't mean to wind you up." Nile puts her hand on Booker's chest, right over his heart. "I don't think I can have sex after what I've seen the last few days. Will you just hold me?"

"Of course," he says. He lays his hand over hers and squeezes it. "I would love that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sadeeqah](https://hottopicmonk.tumblr.com/post/630086486832857088/modern-standard-arabic-vocabulary-sadeeq-a) (feminine of sadeeq) means friend and also truthful one. It shares etymology with Hebrew tzadik, righteous one. I'm not sure how hefty the connotation is in Arabic or for Joe but it's hefty for me, an American Jew who only has a smattering of liturgical and cultural Hebrew.
> 
> ma minou = my kitty, like pussycat, _like that_  
>  ma petite belle = my little pretty one, an endearment  
> ma biscotte = my biscuit/cookie, endearment  
> ma reine = my queen, romantic endearment  
> mon étoile = my star, romantic endearment  
> mon nounours = my teddy bear (I mean look at him)  
> boychik = endearment for a boy, English/Russian/Yiddish mashup
> 
> I've eaten hardtack (Virginia public schools took me to a Civil War reenactment as a child, why the fuck they thought that was ok is beyond me) and it is disgusting, 0/10. Did I choose ma biscotte among the many, many French endearments [highlightcity_159](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlightcity_159) was so kind as to teach me just so that I could eventually use this joke? ...maybe.
> 
> Remember Gwen from way back in chapter 3? She is an age-appropriate-for-Malik version of Angel Coulby a la Merlin.
> 
> A yahrzeit is the anniversary of a loved one's death. I don't think I'm going to have room to explore Booker and Yasha's relationship much if at all beyond this, but it's important to me that y'all know they're going to stay in touch independent of Nile, and they're going to visit each other on Booker's wife's yahrzeit as well as Yasha's.
> 
> Shout-out to Former Soviet Union Jews over in Jewish Bucky Barnes fandom for the knowledge that while Yakov might be a very common Russian first name, the diminutive Yasha is pretty much exclusively used among Jews. Yasha and Talya's names are in honor of [one of my favorite Bucky fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351673), where he steals little Natasha Romanoff from the Red Room and raises her as his daughter in a grand immigrant adventure in the big city.
> 
> In real life, the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul was the first one with free condom distribution, SIX YEARS after doctors first reported a link between sexual contact and HIV transmission. They could have done it in LA in '84. Who stopped them? My cursory google came up empty but it was probably that piece of shit Ronald Reagan.
> 
> Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox by Manuela Mischke-Reeds is a fantastic resource for trauma survivors, therapists, and anyone whose work causes them to absorb second-hand trauma. 11/10
> 
> As best as I can tell, baking soda soaks are great for occasionally deep-cleaning locs (and possibly also faux locs?) but I couldn't get a clear answer on whether they're helpful for braids, since braids tend to only last a few months max. Nile's regulation cornrows in the movie are [common among Black service women, who typically have a friend rebraid them once a week](https://bellatory.com/hair/Black-Women-in-the-Navy-Wearing-Cornrows), a mind-blowing expenditure of energy during bootcamp but you do what you gotta do. (I am OUTRAGED on Nile's behalf every time an op gets blood or, even worse, guts in her hair, what a pain in the ass, why do these jerks not respect wash day?!) Booker and I have both spent a lot of time thinking about Nile's hair, and at this point in their relationship, he knows the basics of her haircare routine but there are details she hasn't mentioned yet and sometimes he goes a little too hard in the direction of doing his own research before bugging her with questions. As always, I would humbly welcome any corrections in the comments or on Tumblr if you have the energy to point out mistakes I've made with Nile's hair or elsewhere with this white person's depictions of Blackness.
> 
> FASHION INSPIRATION O'CLOCK. [Matthias Schoenaerts has NO RIGHT to look this good in shapeless plastic pants](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/633039683174203392/matthias-adidas-track-pants), it's very rude. All credit for this chapter's porn goes to [Kiki Layne's iconic training leggings](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/634424003911614465/ngoveronicas-kiki-layne-training-for-her-role-as). [Hair inspiration for Nile's new summer braids look](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/630175134160994304/for-me-when-trying-to-pick-projects-my) — she can sweep it up off her neck and run around town all summer, just like in Kiki Layne's iconic yellow dress and updo Zoom interviews! [Nile's Birthday Dress](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/635360185744015360/dontworrydarling-kiki-layne-for-california-style) omg y'all Kiki Layne is so pretty.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * There is, like, a lot of sex in this chapter. If I could I would heavily underline the _porn with feelings_ tag.
>   * Brief references to muggings and the 2008 financial crisis.
>   * Multiple references to antiblackness, including housing and education discrimination and Booker microaggressing despite his best intentions. That last one isn't depicted directly and he apologizes and fixes it.
>   * Multiple references to Booker's depression and negative feelings about himself. He's working on it, but occasionally he says really dark things about himself.
>   * Booker is taking a class this semester focused on Edward Said's Orientalism, and when Nile reads part of it to him aloud it's not stated directly but is heavily implied that Nile is starting to realize she has significantly Orientalist attitudes about her Marine service in Afghanistan.
>   * References to pathetically inadequate corporate responses to climate change and Nile leading the team on a campaign to change that.
>   * Multiple depictions of characters experiencing significant upset, up to and including full-blown panic attack. In each instance the character struggling gets good support.
>   * Reference to the possibility that a character might unexpectedly show another character his dick, briefly, in a non-sexual situation.
>   * Some discussion of birth control, vasectomy, and the someday possibility of pregnancy.
>   * Significant, sustained depiction of multiple characters' grief.
> 


It's a testament to how far Nile has come in accepting her immortality that when she wakes up wrapped up in Booker and she thinks she could happily wake up like this every day for centuries, her gut clenches not at the thought of centuries but at the other thing.

Booker's chest feels so good against her back. His arm sprawled across her middle and his leg pressed between both of hers feel hefty and warm and reassuring. He's got his nose tucked into the back of her neck and the sweep of his beard across her skin doesn't even tickle.

Oh, and he's awake now. She's been so deep in her head that it took her a few seconds to notice that his solid hand on her belly is now gently feeling her up.

Nile let her hips start to roll a little, chasing Booker's hand, encouraging him to paw at her. She hums at him and he murmurs a good morning into the side of her neck.

They rock into each other like an ocean wave slowly churning its way up from stillness, unhurried, like a heartbeat. How many times can Booker kiss the same spot along her spine with that much reverence? She could stand to find out.

No, actually, it turns out that just now she can't stand to wait. Nile rolls her hips with more purpose, and when she arches her back she lets her arm reach up behind her to comb her fingers into Booker's hair. She feels like a queen and a ballerina and completely herself. Her body knows exactly what to do with this beautiful person beside and behind and surrounding her.

Booker's kisses along her spine turn into an open-mouthed moan. He's hard and bobbing against the swell of Nile's ass, and she arches her back with a twist that brings him nudging between her legs towards where she's quickly getting wet.

They rock into each other like that for a few minutes, maybe an hour, maybe a week. Time means nothing and time is everything and how the hell is she only realizing now just how much he means to her.

His hands are so _big_. It feels like he's all over her all at once and it feels _so good_ and she needs _all of him right now_.

"Fuck me" she gasps into her pillow. She feels his entire body curl even tighter around her and she feels his moan through her skin.

He sure does take his damn time dragging that hand of his from her breast down her tummy and, fuck, ghosting over her clit before he takes himself in hand. This is a new angle for them, it takes him a minute to line up. And then—

 _fuck_ and then he's inside her and " _yesssssssssss, fuck, God, you feel so good, oh, ohhhhhhh, that angle, yes, right there, yes there, yeah, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck_ " and she is _whimpering_ and she loves him so much and the head of his cock feels like it's stroking her clit from the inside and _God damn she loves him and he's so good to her and fuck this feels. so. good._

Booker has never heard Nile sound quite like this before. And he's never been balls-deep inside her without being able to see her face before, and she sounds like she's in ecstasy but he needs to see her face, he needs to know that if there's a crinkle between her brows it's in pleasure and not discomfort or worry or like she's trying to put on a show for him or —

Nile is _grinning_. He can't really thrust into her from how he's twisted around to see her face and it is _worth it_ to see her glowing like that. _He_ is making her feel like that. Her pussy feels so good around him but that joy on her face is fucking transporting him.

Oh, and now Nile is _transporting_ him, she's got a hand anchored between his shoulder blades to keep him pressed against her back and now she's rolled herself onto her belly with him on top of her and they haven't really talked about this and he wouldn't necessarily look at a list of sex positions and say "yes I think I'll fuck you from behind today" but Nile is gasping and _keening_ and "fuck sweetheart yes right there yes yes God you feel so good you're so good to me oh my God this ANGLE are you fucking kidding me fuuuuuuuuuuck God I want you right like this oh Goooooooooooooooood" —

She is incandescent. _Fuck_ it is so hot to hear those words drip out of her uncontrollably just like her pussy is dripping wet all around him and he will do everything in his power to fuck her as good as she deserves.

Booker's had his hand splayed across her mid-thigh ever since she rolled them over, warm but light, like he's signaling to her that this position she chose for them is one she can un-choose if she wants to, and maybe they should talk at some point about if he's worried about how much she really wants to be here, and she's got to tell him, how is she only realizing this now, she needs to tell him _now_ , but not _right the fuck now_ , because she has been right on the edge of this orgasm for m i n u t e s now and _holy fuck Booker's dragging his hand up her thigh and around her hip and y e s s s s s s s s s s s he is rolling his thumb and forefinger up and down across the sides of her clit and GOD THIS FEELS SO GOOD HIS HAND HIS COCK HIS CHEST HIS LIPS HE FEELS SO. FUCKING. GOOD_ —

Booker never once in his life thought that an honest to God _whine_ could sound so sexy and he has not been living until _right this moment_ holy _fuck_ Nile is so so beautiful and she's babbling about how good _he_ makes her feel and he can practically feel her vibrating out of her skin he can see the waves of pleasure crashing all around her he thinks she might be squeezing his soul out of his cock is she still orgasming holy shit she's still coming can he hold on for her fuck can he hold on for himself what even is the difference FUCK —

—

—

Nile is gasping into the sheets and Booker is gasping into her back and they're ending this just where it started with their breath pulsing back and forth like a heartbeat between them.

There is not a single thought in her mind beyond this moment. As she feels Booker's cock slide out of her she lets her body just sink into the sheets boneless and exhausted and so in love and —

Booker watches Nile fall into the sheets like she's both a feather and a bowling ball dropping down from a skyscraper. Her confidence in every goddamn thing she does is the most stunning thing he has ever seen in his entire goddamn life. He's still braced above her with one fist and his knees supporting his weight, his hand is resting across her lower belly, apparently his cock has slipped out of her. He doesn't think he could move if he tried. All he can do is look at her.

Her new braids are fanning out across the pillow from above her wrap, glinting where the morning sun hits the golden cords he'd helped her braid through them. Merde, he can't believe she allowed him to help her create this art with her hair.

She is so goddamn beautiful. And he can finally see her face. Her eyelids are fluttering closed and there's no tension between her brows and her jaw is loose in an open-mouthed smile that's equal parts filthy and angelic.

Before he has time to think filthy thoughts about her beautiful mouth he sees her spine go alert. Is something wrong? Before he knows it she's rolled herself onto her back — she's reaching her hand up to cup the side of his neck, she's pulling him down to lay on his side next to her, she's licking her lips like she needs to remember how to talk after gushing her pleasure so fluently only moments earlier, and he knows he would wait as long as she needed for anything she wanted to say to him.

Nile feels like she's floating. Her heart's pounding in her throat but she knows Booker's got her tethered, he won't let her float away. She takes another breath and says, "I love you."

He brushes his thumb across her cheek with such tenderness, and she doesn't need to hear him say it to know. She realizes she's known for a long time now.

He says it all the same. "I love you too."

Her smile is blinding as she puts it together. "You've been waiting for me to say it first, haven't you."

He nods.

"How long?"

"Somewhere between Andy calling me to say she found you and she thought you showed promise because you stabbed her, and 'Is this a Rodin?'"

Booker feels her cheek flush. It's overwhelming, that he can say things that make her flush, and that she allows him the closeness to feel the heat on her cheeks. It's like she's telling him that she loves him — that she _trusts_ him — with her whole face.

He spends a good long minute brushing his thumb across her cheek, just looking at her. "It is so hot how you tell me exactly what you like and how much you like it," he says eventually. "And let's, ah, add this to the rotation, shall we? But I missed your face."

* * *

"Hi!" Nile says to the little rectangle in front of her. "It's so good to see y'all's faces!"

Quỳnh and Andy grin and wave. "Good to see you too, Nile," says Andy. "I'm just saying hi, Quỳnh has an idea for you."

"Ooh I'm all ears," Nile says, and Andy kisses Quỳnh on the cheek and looks back at Nile through the camera with a quirk of her eyebrow before disappearing from view.

"So what's on your mind?" Nile asks.

"I just had the most marvelous idea," Quỳnh says in that slow, luxurious way of hers.

Pleasure really suits her. Nile hopes she never stops appreciating how Quỳnh _enjoys_ things.

"You've got my attention, you gonna make me wait all day?" Nile exaggerates it, clearly teasing.

Quỳnh turns up the mysteriousness on her smile. "I have decided it is finally time for me to experience your continent." Nile's breath catches. "I would like you to come with me to your country, and I would like for us to go to New York Fashion Week."

Nile is stunned for a moment, and then she bursts out with, "Oh _hell_ yes."

* * *

Copley arranges their flights so that Quỳnh has a layover at Heathrow and they fly together to New York. Nile holds her hand as they get on the plane.

Odds are beyond slim that Nile is going to run into anyone she knows at fucking Fashion Week, it's just laughably far from her previous life. With those goddamn cheekbones though, in a different life, Jay probably could've been a model—

Holding Quỳnh's hand isn't just for Quỳnh. Crossing this ocean is going to be hard for her. It's everything that comes after that's going to be hard for Nile.

They both need this. It's going to hurt, but it's going to be worth it. So they're going to fucking do it.

When they return from their ten-day whirlwind, it's to Booker's flat for a home-cooked meal and a rapt audience for stories of their adventure. Quỳnh will be staying the night at Nile's place before her flight home to Andy tomorrow, but Nile insists that Quỳnh join her at Booker's first. They're family. Nile will happily keep her clothes on for hours after reuniting with her boyfriend if it means spending time with two of her favorite people in the same room.

The stories they tell are about thin-crust pizza and bagels and street cart hot dogs. Art galleries and architecture tours. Gushing over designers and flirting with models and one-upping each other with their makeup. Staying up late painting each other's nails and gossiping and making it official that they've become sisters with a pinkie swear. Taking down a few muggers on a whim, just because they could.

Redirecting the liquid assets of a handful of bankers who managed to _profit_ from the 2008 crisis was very much not on a whim. The details of that op are a particular joy to watch Quỳnh tell Booker.

Most of the money went to informal networks of Black and Latina moms organizing the neighborhoods they're determined not to get pushed out of. This is another new thing they're trying, redistributing hoarded assets locally, identifying people who are fighting the systems that exploit them and giving those people a boost in their work to build a more humane world.

They did keep some money for the team, to bankroll future ops and because Quỳnh believes strongly in finder's fees.

Among other things, that finder's fee bought _the dress_. Floor-length gold sequins and a demure high neck that curves down into what Quỳnh cackles as she calls tasteful sideboob.

Now Nile just needs somewhere to wear it.

* * *

"Ma belle, it's gorgeous!" Fatou says when Nile shows her the picture. "Where are you going to wear it?"

Lena Andrews is a power suit business lady who would totally fly to New York Fashion Week at the last minute because a friend asked. Nile Freeman has complicated middle-class feelings about this particular lie, but she does love that Fatou seems to take genuine pleasure in Lena's success.

Copley's been eyeing a very exclusive charity gala hosted by BP that will work very, very well as an excuse to wear the dress. It's also a strong potential entry point to gaining intel on the company's zero net emissions by 2050 plan. It looks nice and vague on their website, nothing the public can really hold them accountable for, and Nile and Copley would like to do something about that.

"I'm taking Sébastien to a charity gala," she tells Fatou.

"Has he seen the dress yet?" Fatou asks.

"He had the exact same reaction you did," Nile says. "He hasn't seen it _on me_ yet, I think I'll save that for the gala."

"Smart girl. You wouldn't want to damage such a beautiful dress in the throes of passion before the big night!"

The both of them giggle like schoolgirls. Nile absolutely loves this woman.

* * *

"Please, just show me a picture?"

Nile is sitting on a cushion on the floor between Booker's legs while he works on her hair. In theory she's reading to him aloud from Orientalism, the Edward Said classic he's been mentioning for months and now is taking a whole class about, and it is giving her _deep thoughts_ — maybe the kind of deep thoughts worthy of a video call with Nicky. Maybe it's disrespectful to an important work that has _implications_ for her, but she keeps getting distracted with not-deep thoughts.

Tomorrow night is their big gala night out and Booker still will not tell her anything about what he'll be wearing.

She's going to surprise him with the twist-out that this afternoon's labor will result in, but he's seen her dress and heard all about her plans for styling it. All she wants is a hint! Pretty please?!

"I assure you that I will not embarrass you, mon étoile."

"Your Indiana Jones cosplay is sexy as hell, but you gotta dress up more than that!" She's styled herself from his closet more than once and so is perfectly aware that he can dress up or down for any occasion and fit right in. But if begging won't work, maybe she can annoy it out of him?

"What would your fellow executives think if they knew you were slumming it with a Marseillaise street rat?" he says, faux-scandalized.

"Daisy sent me an old video of pizza rat the other day, said you're cute, she's looking forward to meeting you in person one of these days."

Booker never sounds more French than when he scoffs. "As if I would betray you by eating New York style pizza!"

Nile tickles the back of his knee. He can't help the brief pull at her hair when he jumps, and he immediately mutters "desolée" but Nile thinks it's totally worth a moment of minor discomfort to get him to squirm a little.

He's paused, gently holding two strands of her hair mid-twist, so she takes the opportunity to look over her shoulder at him with her very best puppy eyes.

"Truly," he says, "I have everything in hand to dress myself appropriately. What do you think Quỳnh and I text about?"

Nile grins as she turns back so he can continue with her hair. "Murder, probably," she says.

"More arson than direct murder, mostly. Explosives will always be my first love," he says, and it's played-up faux-wistful but she knows he really does love the tactile puzzle of blowing things up. "My text thread with Quỳnh is 20% mayhem, 80% fashion. With her expert guidance I might manage to sweep you off your feet."

"Not even the color scheme?"

"You've already seen my liver and intestines, ma biscotte. I have to keep some mystery or you'll grow tired of me," he says, and she can hear his smirk.

She can also hear the edge to his voice. It's one of those things he says sometimes, teasing, just to be funny, _no really I'm just joking around you don't have to look at me like that_. She knows him well enough by now to see right through it.

She's starting to know him well enough to understand that words of affirmation don't work for him how they do for her. She eats that shit up, millennial stereotypes be damned, give her a blue ribbon and a gold star please and thank you. Booker loves praise in bed, and she is _very happy_ to oblige, would have a hard time stopping herself, but in any other context he— he bristles.

The one time she pushed, after he'd joined her for family dinner at Fatou's and Moustapha had said something that seemed innocuous enough to her but had really dug under Booker's skin, was the first time he's actually pushed her away. They were supposed to go back to his place together that night but she ended up in her much less cozy apartment by herself. It wasn't a fight so much as he just shut down.

It's like he doesn't trust that the words are true. He can take a compliment, is effortlessly smooth giving and receiving the niceties of small talk, blushes adorably at genuine compliments. It's when he rags on himself and she wants to give him a little reassurance that words fail them both.

There's no talking a person out of hating themself, she supposes. Nile looks down at the book she keeps getting distracted from. Yeah. Maybe Nicky will be free for a call tomorrow morning.

"Fine, leave me in suspense!" she says, matching tease for tease in her tone. "When you're at a pausing point I need to grab my phone, just remembered I need to send a text."

"D'accord," he says. "Remind me of my assignment for tomorrow, ma reine? I am to be your, what is the word again?"

"You are to be my himbo, you himbo," she says, laughing. "Copley has been coaching me for months in how to blend in for corporate espionage, I'll handle all the networking shit. You've just gotta look pretty on my arm."

"I shall do my utmost," he declares, then more normally, says, "Is there anything I can help you keep an eye out for?"

"Nah, don't worry about it, but thank you," she says. "The plan is for me to business-flirt and see what emerges that we can run down in more detail later. We'll both be recording, but you don't need to fish. Let's just cross our fingers that we don't run into anyone who's a for-real member of the BU class of 2015 and notices I'm not one of the like three Black girls from their business classes."

Booker huffs quietly. He's finishing off the little piece of paper at the bottom of this twist so that tomorrow's curl will be perfect from start to finish, and when he's done he places a gentle kiss to her temple. "Paused — can I get you anything while you find your phone?"

She shakes her head as she gets up. Her phone's fully charged, nice — she unplugs it and fires off a quick text to Nicky, does a few stretches, then pockets her phone and goes to settle back on the floor in front of the couch. She picks up the book but doesn't open it.

When Booker settles back in behind her, he asks, "I think we can afford a study break. Have I told you the melodrama that was getting myself into a PhD program mid-year on two months' notice?"

"I mean, you told me about that weird guy you blackmailed to get you into school and then went bowling with. There's more to this story?"

He chuckles. "Much more. Academia is a twisted world, let me tell you." Nile lets her eyes drift closed as she enjoys his fingers in her hair and his voice in her ear.

It's getting dark out as he finishes with her hair. He lights Shabbat candles — something he's been trying out lately — and then assures her it is not sacrilegious to fuck next to them. In case she was wondering.

They have to relocate to the bedroom so she doesn't knock the candles over. Arson is only fun when it's done safely and for a good cause, he says, but he has to admit she's right that this would be a very good cause.

* * *

Nile lets herself sleep in a little. It's not nearly as fun in her ho-hum bed by herself as it would be at Sébastien's, but it's still a lazy morning in bed and she's determined to enjoy it. She lets herself further ease into the day with a big pot of coffee and a few episodes of her new favorite cdrama, which she is proud to say she's starting to follow decently well with the help of Chinese captions instead of English subtitles.

Nicky is in transit today, so no deep-thoughts talk this morning, but they've made a friend date for next week and Nile has an appointment with herself to do some journaling between now and then. She puts the itchy uncomfortable Orientalism thoughts from yesterday in the not-now corner of her brain and lets herself relax before it's time to get ready for her big evening.

She spends most of her primping routine on the phone with Jimbo the Spy Who Got Me Laid. They're not trying to steal anything or capture anybody, so there's no need for him to quarterback this op — she and Booker will both have audio/video recording devices on them so they don't have to rely on their memories or hasty notes for further analysis, but no bugs in their ears.

It's been more than half a year that both of these men have been fixtures in her life and neither of them has made any hint that they'd like to interact with each other. Guilt is afraid of company, maybe.

It's possible that in as soon as ten years, Joe will consent to visit Booker. The Cologne trip went so well that Nile expects a double-date invite from Andy and Quỳnh within the year. But otherwise, Nile will just have to content herself with spending time with her sparkling dumbass alone or with mortals who can't know their secret. (Well, or one of these days she can take Daisy up on her offer and take Book on a vacation in space. What even is her life.)

Anyway. It's time to really and truly all the way embody Lena Andrews, ambitious corporate go-getter.

She and Jimbo go over the major players _again_ and he talks her through the excuse he came up with for her cover persona to have come across the very not-public documents Nile has recently been privy to, should bringing them up be helpful in her fishing. The op is to figure out who's on BP's enviro team. Not comms, not legal, not even R&D — who is making the senior management decisions about their net zero by 2050 campaign.

An oil company going zero-emissions. Sure, totally.

But the thing is, this corporation has known for decades that their current business model won't be viable forever, and the Paris Agreement was a point of no return for government intervention — they have to have put in the research, they absolutely know what's possible to reduce or maybe even reverse their contribution to climate change. They're just not going to do anything that limits their ability to rake in money unless they're forced to.

Publicly shaming an employer had mixed results with the Greek shipping company and again with ICE, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad tactic. The last time she had a bad day and logged into what Jimbo had rigged for her to check up on her old social media, she saw an Instagram of some of her high school friends at a Green New Deal protest. She's paying as little attention to the US presidential election as possible given that its outcome will have a significant impact on climate policy worldwide — what was that about waiting until next week to talk to Nicky? — but she's read [Joe Biden's climate platform](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21252892/climate-change-democrats-joe-biden-renewable-energy-unions-environmental-justice) and if a weasely moderate who her mother ranted about extensively her entire childhood can run on a climate platform with teeth, maybe the global public is ready to force BP to leave some money on the table.

Fuck around and find out, multinational corporation, Nile Freeman is coming for you. What _even_ is her life.

It takes a good long time to separate out all her curls. Her arms are sore by the time she's done and the ache jolts her with how much she misses Joe. It only occurs to her now that she could've asked Jimbo to help with her hair for tonight. She adores him, and she knows he cares for and respects her. If they wanted to take over the world, the two of them could do it, no doubt. And surely he helped his wife with this sort of thing. It's just— she doesn't know what it is. He's her friend who can teach her how to be a spy and make it convenient for her to run into a certain beautiful idiot, but he doesn't get to touch her hair.

Hair, check. Intel prep, check. Now for a late lunch so she doesn't accidentally get drunk and blow the op before what's sure to be an unnecessarily high-concept meal with laughably small portions, then makeup, then the dress, then go meet up with her arm candy.

* * *

Booker told Professor Ashland that he had to leave at 1600 sharp because he's going to an event with his girlfriend tonight. Some of her students are talkers about their personal lives, and Booker is very much not one of them, but it's obvious in his face whenever the girlfriend is mentioned that he's head over heels.

They're both surprised that there's something that can keep Booker from leaving on time to meet this woman who clearly hangs the moon for him.

Another student having a panic attack while transcribing interviews is such an event. Booker sits with her for as long as she needs, which turns out to be more than half an hour past when he was supposed to leave. Professor Ashland learned long ago not to personally coach her students through psychological incidents, so she has people she typically calls if an acute need arises in the course of overseeing students working on traumatic content, but Booker insists he can help, and true to his word, he coaches the poor undergrad through self-regulating enough to make it home safe.

He promises to make up the work he didn't get to this afternoon, bless him, and then he's running out of the building like his life depends on it. Professor Ashland will never get tired of seeing students who study trauma because they're traumatized relearn how to thrive.

Booker wasn't going to abandon someone in the middle of a crisis he was so well prepared to help them through, but now he's going to be late to meet Nile. Merde.

He can save time by skipping a shower or by running home from campus at top speed, but not both, and basically the one nice thing about being immortal is that when you run with an overstuffed messenger bag like a dork in public where people can see you, someday they'll all be dead and you won't have to live with the embarrassment.

Showered, dressed, hair vaguely managed, surveillance planted on his person. Uber is a privacy nightmare, but needs must. He's only 10 minutes late to meet Nile.

She's already gone into the event, and her text doesn't sound upset, just antsy to get to work. He has his own event pass on his phone, so he sets his shoulders, takes a deep breath, and walks up to the check-in desk.

He hasn't needed a suit for anything in a good long while, and it was such fun to buy this one. It's a fashion statement but not so out there as to be distracting, and the teal will be striking next to Nile's gold dress. He promised not to embarrass her, and he hopes to make this night as easy and fun for her as possible amid all the unknowns of the op.

Corporate types must be punctual, because the ballroom is already bustling, and it takes him another ten minutes to find her in the crowd. When she finally appears, she's smiling widely at a group of people in well-fitting but nondescript suits, gesturing with her wine glass as they all hang on her every word.

She is a _goddess_ , a column of gold standing tall and confident with a— Dieu, a _stunning_ cloud of curls around her face. He must be staring, because her eyes find his over the shoulders of her audience, and her smile gets impossibly wider.

Lena excuses herself from the gaggle of lawyers gathered around her, because her date just arrived and she needs to go say hello.

"Hi," she says when they're finally face to face. They both just stand there for a long moment, taking each other in.

"Will I do?" he asks, hands out as if presenting himself for inspection.

She takes his hand and squeezes.

They're as easy together networking their way through this grand ballroom as they are trading tasks in his small kitchen, and by the time they're seated for dinner Nile has a purse full of business cards and a few leads to follow up on later in the night when her targets might be a little drunk.

Their dinner companions are a power couple who are excited to chat with her in Mandarin, the show-offs, and an older man in an expensive-looking but outmoded suit whose partner is clearly a trophy husband — but a trophy husband who turns out to be very happy and well-loved. The wife of the power couple works in venture capital and Nile subtly plays up Lena's thirst for a mentor. By the end of dinner, she's got herself a lunch date, and Booker has gotten everyone laughing with the very least interesting and therefore not-confidential of his stories from the Tokyo trip.

Booker and the trophy husband, Bobby, have a long and entertaining conversation about menswear that elicits the only comment Bobby's husband makes after introductions, when he points out that the fundraiser is for ocean conservation and Lena and her date look like finding golden treasure in the ocean.

Both Nile and Booker immediately think of Quỳnh, but both of them are good at charming awkward strangers and they doubt anyone notices the brief look they share. They field a lot of bizarre comments throughout the night — a gala of this caliber attracts many kinds of ambition, and in addition to some very helpful intel on BP, and a few firms in other industries to boot, she also encounters two separate offers of group sex, a financial analyst job offer, and an application to be her personal stylist.

They separate a few times to spread out across the room, and Booker tells her that he seems to be a magnet for young men trying to dig up dirt on their potential bosses. Weird. Maybe the suit makes him look young and ambitious? Ironic, because that's all Nile, and he's in his element as her arm candy. He'll gladly be her arm candy and her backup for as long as she'll have him.

It's fun. They're having fun. But all night they are both intensely aware of the recording devices capturing not just the people around them but how they interact with each other.

Every time she sees him across the room her heart picks up. Every time she gets close to him Nile wants to whisper things in her Sébastien's ear that Jimbo the Spy Who Got Me Laid _is not authorized to overhear_.

They were both so taken with each other in their formal wear when they first saw each other tonight that they've been here for hours now and they haven't even kissed.

After dinner there are speeches, and after the speeches is the fundraising appeal, and after the fundraising appeal is dessert, and after dessert is the dance floor.

Nile hadn't planned for this.

Shit, Nile doesn't know how to dance. How the fuck is she this prepared for this op but it didn't fucking occur to her that she might need to dance.

I mean, she can dance. Booker usually goes to his live shows by himself, says the point is to learn how to really enjoy himself all alone in a crowd of strangers, but they did go to a club once back in July and it was a blast — she can get down, thank you very much.

That is zero help to her right now.

"Ma biscotte, would you care to dance?"

She jolts, small but unmistakable, and turns to see him standing beside her offering his hand. He must've leaned in close to whisper the offer in her ear while she was staring at the dance floor, stymied.

"I don't know how," she says.

"This is one of the few things I'm very good at leading," he says, low.

Their every word is being recorded. Nile still has another 90 minutes of networking ahead of her. Every nerve in her body is on fire.

She bites her lip, and then she remembers that Booker is facing her, which means her good pal Jimbo is getting video of what her face is doing right now.

Jesus fucking Christ.

"One song," she says, and she takes his hand.

They don't speak as they dance. She follows his lead through simple steps. It's a mid-tempo song, neither sexy nor particularly energetic, but she feels breathless as they move together. He's got one hand at her waist and the other gently cradling her own, and from the tenderness in his hands and plain across his face for the whole world to see, she wonders if maybe he's having a sacred experience.

Sacred looks different for him than it does for her, she's learning. Maybe this is how he experiences the divine.

The song goes on forever and ends too soon, and Lena Andrews has work still to do.

When the night is finally over, Nile is proud of the volume and breadth of starter intel she's gathered tonight. She's confident that viable leads will come from this. They both stop by the bathrooms on their way out the door, and Nile covers the video camera with one hand but she doesn't disconnect it, because what if she has one last conversation with a key target in the hallway by the exit?

If Booker looks down while he's at the urinal in a hello / fuck you to his former collaborator on the other end of the video stream, he doesn't tell Nile about it.

They make small talk with other guests in the taxi line, and she ends up meeting the assistant of someone she thinks might be on the executive enviro team. Nile's glad she kept her gear on to capture what may end up being the most important intel of the night.

But it's a long ride home, holding each other's hands in an electric silence.

* * *

The moment the door to Booker's flat is closed, they are both tearing off their cameras and microphones and fumbling to flip their tiny off switches. Booker holds out his hand and as soon as she realizes what he's asking she hands over her gear. He rushes to toss it all in the microwave and practically slams the little appliance door.

Then, _finally_ , he is kissing her.

"You were stunning tonight, mon étoile," he murmurs between kisses.

"So were you," she says. "God _damn_ , this suit."

"You approve?"

"I want to take it off of you slowly so you can wear it for me again." She's already pushing the jacket off his shoulders.

"I better hang this up then," he says, and he takes her hand and leads her into the bedroom.

The moment he turns back to her after hanging up the jacket, she takes both his hands and draws them up to her neck and then into her hair.

"This twist-out won't last anyway, so don't be shy," she says.

After Tokyo, Nile realized just _how_ careful Booker had been about her hair, to the point where it was getting just to the edge of weird. So she called him on it, he apologized, they talked it out, and now he gladly takes whatever invitations she gives him to get his hands in her hair.

Those big hands of his have had centuries to perfect delicate tasks like carving coin-forging molds and wiring explosives. When she was getting ready for her New York trip she asked him how he'd feel if she came back with something recalling the fashion of his youth — a corset, maybe — and he'd very carefully taken every stitch of clothing off of them both while telling her exactly how much he would like to help her into and out of a corset.

She hasn't gotten around to buying one yet. Maybe for her first visit next year.

The way he kisses her is so romantic, so _respectful_ — there's really no other word for it — that she can't help but get lost in the feel of it and let her mind wander. Tonight he's going to find the opposite of a corset under this dress, and the thought jolts her back to an urgency that has her scrabbling at his tie.

He chuckles against her lips. "You want help with that?"

"Nah, I got it," she says. The desperation of those first moments tearing off their recording gear had melted away with his kisses, and now she deliberately stills her hands, lets the lightning feeling of _want you now_ settle enough that she can set herself determinedly to his tie. She folds the tie and tucks it into the pocket of his pants so she doesn't have to step away from him just yet, and then her hands are running back up his torso and plucking open the buttons of this simple but very well-fitting white dress shirt.

Nile is realizing she definitely has a fashion kink. Now is _definitely_ not the time to get distracted, but a few orgasms from now she's going to need to know where he got this shirt.

For now, she's got his shirt open and when she tugs the tails of it out of his waistband his fingers dig deeper into her scalp. She takes a minute just to rest her hands on his chest and enjoy kissing him before moving to his belt.

Once she gets to his zipper, they're really gonna have to stop kissing for a minute or they are going to _ruin_ this suit.

He notices she's paused at the top button of his pants. He growls into one last kiss before he pulls back to say, "I shouldn't have worn shoes I have to untie."

Nile grins. "Allow me," she says, and she sinks to her knees.

Nile doesn't know that Booker has to conjugate Arabic verbs in his head to stop himself from coming in his pants while he watches her untie his shoes. She just knows that as good as he looked in that suit, he looks even better when it's hung up in his closet and he's tearing off his undershirt and standing in front of her in just a strained pair of boxer briefs.

"Your turn," he says, and he spins his pointer finger in the air to ask her to turn around.

She's expecting him to take his time pulling the zipper from the high collar down between her shoulder blades and to the small of her back. She's not expecting him to instead run his hands across her shoulders and down the line where the dramatic cutout meets her skin. His teeth nip at her bare shoulder as his hands reach her bare breasts where they peek out at the sides, and he dips his fingers just under the fabric for just a moment before continuing the rest of the way down her ribs and—

 _Enough._ She reaches behind her to work at her zipper her damn self. He sucks a bruise into her shoulder before getting with the program and tearing his hands from where they're glued to the bare skin at her back to help _finally_ get this gorgeous dress _off of her_.

He's on his knees behind her, holding the dress for her to step out of, and when she turns around, hand still clutched at his shoulder for balance, his strangled whimper is worth every moment of the wait.

She's wearing a strapless bra that's clinging to her with spray adhesive and two laces pulled taut between her breasts. The _opposite_ of a corset, and yet.

Booker's eyes have gone glassy, jaw slack, so she takes the dress out of his hands and hangs it up carefully.

"Come here," he asks, and she turns around from the closet to see he's still on his knees. She's still wearing her heels and a simple pair of black satin panties and she _really_ wants him to toss her on the bed and tear off the rest of her clothes and fuck her into tomorrow morning, but who is she to turn down what he's clearly so desperate for?

He definitely notices how her tits bounce in this ridiculous bra, but then his eyes track all the way up to her face, and there he goes again, so romantic she can't focus. The way he plants a gentle kiss to her belly wile his eyes are still locked on hers is just—

And he's gotten his fingers in the waistband of her panties and tugged them down to the floor without her even noticing. Nile is _throbbing_ she is _dripping_ there is _no way she is going to stay standing_. He digs his fingers into the fleshy curves where her hips become her thighs, she gets both her hands into his hair because _if he waits one more second she is going to explode_ , and finally, _finally_ , he leans into her curls and rubs his nose against the side of her clit.

He licks at her pussy with the same reverence she'd felt from him as he led her across the dance floor, hours ago now. His moans are vibrating through her and her head is spinning and she wants— she wants—

"You keep at that much longer and I'm gonna fall down," she says, gasping. A little part of her wants that, to come hard with his mouth on her clit and three of his fingers curling into her and to sway from the overwhelming force of it until he has to catch her in his arms.

But if they do that, she'll be out for the night.

He hasn't moved his hands from their iron grip at her thighs, but his tongue has slowed from where it was swirling around her clit, and she whines as he pulls away to kiss gently across the top of her thigh.

And then he's leaning his shoulder across her hips and _he is picking her up what the **fuck** he's got her in a fireman's carry and he is crossing the room and dumping her unceremoniously across his bed holy fuck_

"Wouldn't want you to fall," he says, and his smirk is filthy and his eyes are so warm and _fuck_ Nile is losing her damn mind over this man.

"Get down here and fuck me already," she says.

"Oui, ma reine."

He takes for _ever_ undoing the straps of her heels and setting each one carefully on the floor, which is _not_ what she asked, she would have gladly left them on if _he would just fuck her already_ —

"Wait, Sébastien? Is everything ok?"

She's got to ask. He's standing at the foot of the bed with this _look_ on his face, she can't place it, and as much as she's about to burst she would never push him in a direction that's not a joy for them both.

He licks his lips slowly, like he's trying to find the words.

"I have no idea how that bra works."

"Oh," she says. "Come down here and I'll show you, sweetheart."

He settles on his side next to her and she takes his hand and shows him how to peel off one cup and then the other. "I didn't think this would be your first time with spray adhesive," she says, brushing his hair off his forehead, and he looks like he has a million follow-up questions but those can wait because he's pawing at her tits now, kneeling up so he can use both hands, running his knuckles across her nipples where she is so sensitive she is going to _lose her mind_.

He must see it in her face because his hands disappear all of a sudden to dispatch the boxer briefs and he is settling back between her thighs and she moans in victory as she wraps her legs around him and hooks her ankles together behind his back, about goddamn time he is finally going to—

The velvety press of the head of his cock is _perfect_ at her entrance and sliding all the way home. He lets his weight rest on her like he's learned she likes, leaning just a little to one side so her clit gets plenty of attention but not too much, and he buries his face in her neck, gets a hand on her tit, and starts to match the roll of her hips.

She can't decide whether to clutch at his ass or his hair or his shoulders, all she knows is she has been waiting for this all fucking night and he feels so good inside her and she loves the way he's moaning into her neck and the way he's forgetting to grope at her breast means he's close and she's been on the edge for what feels like an hour if she could just tilt her hips a _little_ , oh, _oh_ — _there_ , right _there_ if he keeps fucking into her _just like that_ she is going to—

She feels him come inside her with a jolt, and after a moment he stills, lets his body rest heavily against hers, but he doesn't pull out, doesn't seem to mind the oversensitivity, and he's grinning into the soft skin at the base of her neck while she keeps twisting her hips up against him as she rides out wave after wave of her orgasm.

Once her pussy has stopped fluttering around him and she's gone boneless, he pulls out and resettles next to her where they can exchange goofy smiles and soft kisses until they're ready to either go again or fall asleep.

Booker dozes off for a little while, she thinks. Nile might doze a little too, she's not really sure, she's just enjoying the floaty feeling after a drawn-out orgasm and the mental quiet of a very successful mission-slash-date.

That box of condoms from their first night turns out to have been exactly what she guessed: something he bought just in case, after reading extensively about how trauma affects sexuality and deciding he'd like to be prepared well in advance in case he feels up to sex again someday. They'd had the STI talk that first week, nearly six months ago now, and haven't had a need for condoms since.

She hadn't gotten around to getting an IUD yet and it turns out she didn't need to. Booker had a vasectomy decades ago, "so I wouldn't have to worry about the potential for children I might not know about and would definitely disappoint." They held each other tight for a long time in silence after he said that.

Vasectomies are reversible, at least in theory, if someday that's a road they might want to go down. She's not even gonna think about that, let alone bring it up with him, for at least a century. Nominally because of the exile, but when she's honest with herself, even with the team's new mission she still has dystopian fever dreams of running an orphanage for climate refugees.

And anyway, she misses her own mother too much to think about someday becoming a mother herself.

* * *

"I have an idea for a small op that I'm not sure it's time for yet," Jimbo the Spy Who Got Me Laid says crisply from across the table.

His accent gets even more aggressively Queen's-English when he's nervous. Nile looks up from where she's doodling in her notebook. "Tell me about it," she says. "We'll talk it through and decide on a timeline like we always do. What's up?"

"It's, ah—" He looks away, glances out the windows that are tinted dark to protect from the sun and prying eyes. "With your permission," he says slowly. Takes a deep breath. "I would like to visit your mother."

Nile freezes.

"I've been considering it for some time. I would write to her, introduce myself as a colleague who recently learned of your passing and would like to pay my respects while I'm in Chicago on business. If she agrees, and if you would like, I could record our meeting. For— for you to keep."

"You'd do that?" Nile asks, barely above a whisper.

His smile is the warm, grim solidarity in grief that she knows is and always will be one of the foundations of their friendship. Neither of them wants others to suffer how they've suffered. So much of their work together has become pushing each other on the details of preventing suffering, the ethical lines of what sounds on its face to be only the best of intentions.

No one can cheat death. Not even her. But because she's not dead yet—

"Yes," she says, and it's confident, decisive. She would never _command_ he do anything like this. But she will approve this recommendation of his, and she will hold herself tall and strong and plan with him the details of this act of generosity.

Then she will go home and call Joe and Nicky. And then she will call Andy and Quỳnh. And then she will call Booker.

And then, somehow, she will go to Fatou's and sit at that dinner table that anchors an extended family she will never have in that particular way. She will hold Booker's hand and she will tell Fatou she got some surprising news today but she is fine and here's some new vocabulary she'd like to practice to prove it.

"Thank you, Jim," she says that afternoon when their meeting is over and she's making moves to leave. "Can I call you that?"

"I'd be honored," he says. She hugs him tight.

Jim writes his letter to her mother, and she replies by email that she'd love to meet with a friend of her late daughter. They set a date for the last weekend of October and Jim books his flight.

Nile starts going to yoga with Booker because it's about the only thing that can get her to settle. In those weeks she can't bring herself to focus on the next phase of the BP project — Joe and Nicky take it over, and they take to it well, maybe she ought to think about delegating more in the long term. Just not right now. She asks all her tutors for tough assignments and she spends hours in coffee shops and on Booker's couch translating complex legal and medical and philosophical texts. She spends long hours in the gym, even longer on days where she's not planning to sleep over at Booker's.

The day finally comes. Jim texted her when he landed in Chicago two days previously, and he'll text her again once the files are uploaded.

She woke up at Booker's this morning. She hadn't even thought about that the meeting was happening on a Saturday, not until she got to his place last night and he'd wrapped his arms around her from behind and lit his Shabbat candles and quietly sang a blessing for healing into her ear.

They spent most of the night on the couch talking about memories and fears. Booker admitted that he's jealous of her for this opportunity to have one final, loving moment with her mother. He swore he's so glad for her, he knows how painful this still is for her, he's here for her, he knows it's not about him. Just wanted to admit he's feeling jealous too, and he's handling it. So if she was worried about that, she doesn't need to be.

Nile admitted that she had worried, a little, that he might feel that way. By now she can reliably tell when he's saying something in a particular way because he's read it in a book — that is absolutely what happened here, and it means the world to her, because she's learned that doing this means something's really important to him and he wants to get it right. He spent such a long time not telling the people closest to him how he was feeling, and he's determined to do better, especially when the stakes are so high for her.

That he took the time to prepare himself to support _her_ through something that's also going to be so hard for _him_ just—

They both cried a lot last night.

Where last night was about honesty, this morning is about distractions. They make as complicated a breakfast recipe as he could come up with, they do the first round of prep for an even more complicated dinner, and then they go to a 90-minute yoga class that leaves them both so wrung out they don't even have sex during their shared post-workout shower. They both try to do homework for a few hours with mixed success.

Booker had asked Quỳnh if she and Andy might be willing to do a video call with Nile this afternoon while he's around. He didn't want to make a big deal of it, since if they all agree, it would be the first time he and Nile and Andy would be together since the exile, and Nile might not want to talk to them today anyway. He asked just in case. Quỳnh didn't respond to the text, she straight-up video called him, and Andy was there next to her. When they say of course, they'd be happy to spend some time with him and Nile on the big day, their knowing smiles mean the world to him.

Nile huffs deeply and pushes away her thick printout of Hindi-language articles about India's space program. Jim, as she's started calling that person Booker is glad she's become such good friends with but would personally rather never see again, is going to be meeting her mother any minute now.

Booker takes her hand and offers the video call with Andy and Quỳnh. Nile looks shocked, but when he explains, she throws her arms around him and whispers into his ear, "Thank you, sweetheart."

Quỳnh and Andy fill up the air with what they've been up to in Chile the last few weeks. Nile will probably need them to repeat anything important, but for now, their smiles, the sounds of their voices, and Booker's solid arm around her are keeping her from losing her grip.

Across the Atlantic, James Copley is shaking hands with a young man outside a bodega.

* * *

"Mr. Copley?" asks a young man wearing a thick bomber jacket and a baseball cap that looks vaguely like a neon Jackson Pollack.

"Hello," he says, offering his hand to shake. "You must be Indus Freeman?"

He shakes Copley's hand. "Call me Indy."

"In that case, call me Jim," he says. "Your sister did."

Indy smiles tightly and gestures for Jim to follow him.

A short walk later, Indy is unlocking the door to Nile's childhood home. Jim adjusts his glasses. He has a backup camera in the knot of his tie just in case, and another microphone in the side of his laptop bag.

This is it. Indy is ushering him inside, and now he's face to face with Nile's mother.

"James Copley?" she asks, and oh, she reminds him so much of her daughter already.

"Yes," he says, again offering his hand to shake. "Thank you so much for meeting me, and for inviting me into your lovely home. Please call me Jim."

"Dorothy Freeman," she says. "Please, have a seat. Would you like coffee?"

It's 10 am CST, 1600 in London, and he hasn't been in Chicago long enough to have adjusted from the jet lag but he knows the importance of an offer of hospitality.

"That would be lovely, thank you. I picked up paczki to share," he says, lifting the plastic bag from the bodega.

The three of them settle around the kitchen table where Nile must have spent so much time growing up. Dorothy pours a fresh cup of coffee for her guest and tops off her own and her son's mugs while Indy grabs milk and sugar and a plate for the paczki.

Their conversation is stilted at first, and Jim gets the sense that Nile's mother is sizing up whether he had _dated_ her daughter, which is so mind-bendingly laughable but at the same time it's a hell of a thing to see where Nile gets her cut-through-the-bullshit from.

James Copley doesn't have many close friends, and he's come to love and trust and very much look up to the young woman who shot herself in the foot and then informed him that he was switching sides in order to help her fix the mess he'd made. There's no way to tell her mother exactly the nature of their friendship without revealing that Nile is still alive, but there are stories he can tell about his dear friend, details altered here and there, that won't give away her secret.

Once he tells Dorothy and Indy about the mac and cheese competition, they both start to open up more, swapping stories about Nile that make them all laugh at least as much as they cry. They talk until almost noon. 

He knows it's a risk, but a measured one that he decided is worthwhile, to use his real name to introduce himself to Nile's family. When Indy asks if he served with Nile in Afghanistan, he can say with full honesty that it's classified. But more importantly, he offers his contact info in case either of them want to keep in touch. He assures them both that he doesn't want to impose, only to offer a friendly ear, as a widower as well as a card-carrying member of the Nile Freeman fan club. Who knows what will come of it, if anything.

Indy shakes his hand then pulls him in for a quick hug and a soft, "Thanks, man." Dorothy hugs him tight and Jim hopes dearly that his visit has offered some small comfort.

Back in London, it's just past 1900 when Nile gets the text that the AV files from the meeting are ready. Booker finishes getting dinner in the oven while she goes to download the files, and he wraps her up in his arms while they watch. Jim didn't edit anything, just ran to the nearest public place with WiFi and uploaded a compressed file of the raw data, and the video is shaky.

Later, Booker will offer to edit together a smoother video for her, something she can watch like a hug. She'll take him up on it but she'll insist they do it together. She could stand to learn Final Cut Pro.

For now, the sound of her mother's voice settles something in Nile's soul, and if all she gets is this one moment, that will be enough.

Her mom and Indy share stories with Jim that Booker hasn't heard yet, and he laughs along with the video more than once.

Nile can't laugh. Her heart has lodged itself in her throat and it will not move and it is beating _so hard_ as she watches her mom talk about her like she's gone when she's _right here_ , Mom, I'm right here, I'm _alive_.

Before she can start to hyperventilate, Booker scoots her into his lap so that her back is flush against his chest, and he breathes deep so she can feel it through her skin. She matches her breath to his, and after a minute she doesn't have to think about it anymore, she's breathing just fine. Her mom is on the other side of the ocean thinking she's dead, and it's awful, it will always be awful, but having this one last moment is better than not.

Nile cries more times than she can count, over little things and big things, stories that make Booker laugh and moments that not even Indy seemed to notice. She cries when Jim deftly nudges her family into saying what they would want to say to Nile if she were there. She cries harder at their answers.

The only thing that surprises her is the way Jim talks to her family about _her_. He'd asked if there was anything he wanted to say on her behalf, and she'd said no, and she hadn't really thought about what he would say.

There's one thing in particular that blows her away with gratitude for her friend who took on substantial personal risk to do this for her.

"I've known a lot of sharp-eyed commanders in my time but she led with an uncommon kindness. She showed me grace when it would have been much easier for her to hold a grudge. Your daughter loved you so much, and I know that if she could be here right now she would tell you how proud and grateful she is to have come from this home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References I used for Nile's twistout include [Halfrican Beaute](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPEnaHTvw0), [Cool Calm Curly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYXgMR1Ouks), and especially [Mercy Gono BSN, RN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Goa_fyC34).
> 
> Nile's couture gown is, of course, [Kiki Layne's](https://kikilaynedaily.tumblr.com/post/190959385423/kiki-layne-2020-vanity-fair-oscar-party-portraits) [gold dress](http://www.justjared.com/photo-gallery/4435370/regina-king-yalitza-aparicio-kiki-layne-sparkle-at-vanity-fair-after-party-2020-04/) from the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscars Party. Booker's suit is the 7th of eight suits, the teal one, from [this GQ Matthias Schoenaerts spread](https://www.gq.com/gallery/best-lightweight-suits).
> 
> I decided Lena Andrews did her undergrad at Boston University because it's the largest of the well-known colleges in the Boston area and therefore the easiest for her to get away with as a cover story. [Black student representation at those schools is ATROCIOUS](https://www.google.com/search?channel=tus2&client=firefox-b-1-d&q=colleges+in+greater+boston&ibp=htl;splinter&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3-eH7rr3tAhVhu1kKHeoIAnYQiYsCKAJ6BAgBEBU&sxsrf=ALeKk01PaPWhqu_ZAUGIhYZiDQV36axo-Q:1607395528187#htivrt=splinter&htidocid=K7WIdQjd3x_6xZ0uAAAAAA%3D%3D&fpstate=tldetail), like Harvard has one of the HIGHER proportions of Black undergrads with only 8%.
> 
> Someday I'm gonna break and write a long meta about how I think our elderly friends' biology works, I'm far from a scientist but I'm fascinated by this question generally, and especially its implications for things like pregnancy and gender transition. Follow me on Tumblr [@nevermindirah](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/) if you're into that sort of thing.
> 
> Mama Freeman would drop kick Joe Biden if she could, for the '94 crime bill, for what he did to Anita Hill, for being a handsy creep, for wasting a spot on Obama’s ticket that could've gone to somebody worth the compliment. I'm glad he won the election, but jfc. In this house we believe Anita Hill and Tara Reade.
> 
> Mama Freeman was born in the mid-late '60s and named in honor of the then-recently departed [Dorothy Dandridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dandridge).
> 
> I'm starting to use more snippets of French in addition to endearments that, as always, I'm exceedingly grateful to [highlightcity_159](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlightcity_159) for teaching me.  
> mon étoile = my star, a romantic endearment  
> desolée = sorry  
> ma biscotte = my biscuit/cookie, an endearment  
> d'accord = of course  
> ma reine = my queen, an endearment
> 
> Paczki are Polish doughnuts that google tells me are popular in Chicago. If Copley went to visit the Freemans in DC, he'd stop by a bakery or bodega and pick up Salvadoran baked goods, so this was my best guess for the equivalent.
> 
> I don't have a full reading list for any of Booker's classes this fall, but I do have his class schedule. Again, I'm not an academic, just a nerd.
> 
>   * Orientalism, where they read the original Said and a bunch of shitty works whose shittiness it explains, such as [Jihad vs. McWorld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld) (which I remember vividly from my own teenage years thrown around as a justification for the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and was surprised to learn was published in 1995) and [The Clash of Civilizations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations#Criticism)
>   * Churches, States, and Foreign Policy; alternately named Nationalism, Domestic Religious Policy, Foreign Policy, and War — I want to see all six of our currently-living elderly friends, with their wildly different relationships to religion and government policy about religion, sit around a table and discuss ["States, religious diversity, and the crisis of secularism" by Rajeev Bhargava](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/states-religious-diversity-and-crisis-of-secularism-0/)
>   * Mental Illness: A History of Medicalizing Shame
>   * Treating Epigenetic Trauma - this would make a very cool year-long course, where the first semester is cultural / focused on what people affected by inherited trauma do about it, and then second semester is medical, to allow for cultural critique of fucked-up ways trauma is medicalized
>   * Kinesiology of War
> 

> 
> Next chapter is the final one. Thank y'all so much for coming on this journey with me.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, y'all.
> 
> Content warnings for this, the final chapter:
> 
>   * Repeated references to antiblackness, anti-indigenous racism, and colonialism and their psychological toll. Discussion of Nile being the only Black immortal currently alive.
>   * Somewhat graphic depiction of a panic attack and a somatic exercise to support the person through it. Repeated references to other mental illness symptoms, including suicidal ideation, though those references are brief.
>   * Repeated references to grief, both grieving people who have died and the grieving of living people you know you'll outlive that is particular to immortals. Glancing reference to the death of a major character.
>   * Repeated references to the psychological toll of climate change.
>   * References to 21st century privacy nightmares and their psychological as well as legal/economic/political implications.
>   * References to an imagined future where decolonization of the Western Hemisphere is ongoing.
> 

> 
> Not a warning, just a heads up: no porn this chapter. I'm saving up for my Old Guard Big Bang porn extravaganza, which is BoN undercover-mission friends-to-lovers femdom and will pay off this fic's references to corsets.
> 
> I wrote this chapter to [this most excellent Nile Freeman playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07zFTaWtpMTAHu7Mn11mtX) by [andromachescythian](https://andromachescythian.tumblr.com/post/634430344274345984/the-old-guard-playlists), highly recommend.

It's the third week of November, nearing the end of Nile's big year of self-exploration, and her apartment is still as utilitarian and under-decorated as it was in January. It's a place to lay her head.

Booker's place is so much cozier — the natural light pouring through those big windows, the shabby but comfortable mismatched furniture, the riot of books on every available surface. Booker and his love for her in every nook and cranny.

She doesn't spend nearly as much time at Fatou's of course, but that dining table feels more like home to Nile than her own home ever could.

 _Home is the people who love you_ is a gorgeous sentiment for a mortal's wedding vows, but it's torture for an immortal, and Nile is scared shitless about this year coming to an end.

Nile has learned this year that she feels a sense of _home_ , fleeting but real, in the gym. When she hits a deadlift goal she feels like _herself_.

When she wins a point in fencing, when she overhears someone speaking Portuguese on the Tube and can understand it, when Jim calls her analysis of something particularly insightful. That feeling in her spine, not accomplishment necessarily, just certainty that _this is her best self, this is who she was meant to be_. That's a kind of home for her. She can find that in any time or place, next to anybody, probably.

Last year she wanted to gather her new family around a Thanksgiving table laden with the food of her first family. This year all it makes her feel is a knife at her neck.

The story of Thanksgiving is racist bullshit, which she's always known and largely chosen to ignore, and she will reread Borderlands/La Frontera as many times as it takes and work on forgiving herself for knee-jerk reactions borne of growing up in a city full of Black people wearing Chicago NHL team winter-weather gear. She wasn't today years old when she found out that logo isn't ok, far from it. Becoming who she was meant to be means she can't keep ignoring shit she doesn't want to think about.

The part of the story of Thanksgiving that isn't, or at least isn't exclusively, racist bullshit is its celebration of North American food. So Nile spends November appreciating that turkeys and pumpkins aren't traditionally available on this craggy imperialist island she's living on. Every time she sees a Starbucks, or worse, a mom-and-pop coffee shop advertising pumpkin spice lattes she pauses, notices American cultural imperialism, and moves on with her day.

She asks Booker to teach her traditional French fall recipes and it leads to many warm evenings of her sitting on his kitchen island while he cooks and tells her stories about Mélanie and their children. Nile finds herself not even the smallest bit jealous of this long-dead woman who her boyfriend adored with his entire soul — beyond measure and reason comes to mind, and shit, no wonder he was jealous of Joe and Nicky. It's clear to her that he hasn't told these stories in a very long time. Maybe not since before his first death.

Nile loves being trusted with this part of his heart. She's increasingly wary about what it means, though — what it will mean in a few short weeks when the clock strikes its last on 2020.

* * *

"Ok so remember how we said in May that if we're still doing this in December we'd figure it out?"

Nile's sitting at Booker's little table with a half-empty bowl of boeuf bourguignon in front of her. He stills his spoon and looks up at her with a warm little smile.

"Can I tell you a bunch of things I've been thinking about?" she says. "Like, just a wall of talking until I've gotten it all out. If that's ok." His eyebrows are starting to draw together, so she adds, "It's not bad, please don't make that face sweetheart. I just have a lot of feelings, ok?"

He chuckles at the reference. "What's on your mind?"

"When I first kissed you that night after the sidewalk art sale, it was because of how you were with Chris and Mina." His eyebrows shoot up, and she smiles sardonically. "I was so scared that I was your only friend and if I told you I'd caught feelings you might start relying on me even more than you already were. Which," and she blows out a breath. "I think I was projecting."

She's quiet for a long moment, and reaches across the table and gives her hand a squeeze but he doesn't interrupt.

"The point of me moving here was to practice making friends and then practice losing them and recovering from that. And I hate it. Immortality is a fucking curse and sometimes I'm _so angry_ that like 14 hours from now I could hop over to Heathrow and then O'Hare and then _be in my mom's arms_ instead of just watching Jim's video again.

"I'm a little scared that you might come to rely on me more than I might be able to give, but I'm terrified how much I'm going to end up relying on you.

"Like, do immortals come in fucking pairs? Nicky gets to talk about destiny all he wants because some gorgeous stranger took his literal Crusader ass off a battlefield and forced him to bathe and then waited around while he became worthy of a thousand-year fairytale romance and _I am not ready for what that might mean for **us**_. I just— it breaks my brain.

"I spent my entire childhood hearing about climate change and I don't all the way believe that this planet will still exist by the time your exile is up, let alone when I'm as old as Andy. I love traveling and fighting and learning new languages and adapting to new environments. I can handle all that. I'll be _good at all that_. London existed way before Joe and Nicky were born and if the planet survives for another thousand years it probably will too, but Chicago was—

"I was born in somebody else's post-apocalyptic hellscape, and maybe in a thousand years North America will have figured out decolonization, or maybe we're just cursed to survive one apocalypse after another and the internet's ability to put every piece of horrific news that has ever happened in front of our eyeballs all at the same time broke Andy and someday something's going to come along that will break me and when that day comes it's very possible that you will be the only thing in the universe that doesn't make me miserable. We have been dating for six months, Jesus Christ I am not comfortable with thinking these things about someone I've been dating for six months.

"I love you, and none of this means that I want to break up or take a break or kill myself or get Daisy to drop me off on a distant planet or otherwise do something extreme. But I understand why you did what you did last year a lot more viscerally than I'd like to, I _get it_ , and that scares the shit out of me, and I don't know how the fuck I'm going to face Joe and Nicky, and I want to be able to sext you next year without panicking about all this immortality shit and I just— It's all so overwhelming and—"

Her throat feels so tight and her eyes are watering and _oh_ , Booker is hugging her. He's pulled her up from her chair and he's got one arm wrapped tight across her back and the other hand cupping the back of her neck. "Ça va aller," he whispers, over and over.

He holds her while she sobs, and she realizes that she hasn't cried like this in she doesn't know how long. She's always been an efficient crier, her mom used to say, but that's not really true, is it.

She learned in middle school how to cry hard and fast and get herself back together quickly. Her mom would hold her while she cried, but her mom only had so much time to process her own grief and Indy needed them both and by the time Nile was an adult she'd learned how to cry like a semiautomatic weapon. Fast bursts until the clip is empty. Reload. Pause. Scan the terrain, see that the job is done, flip the safety back on. Get moving.

Since becoming immortal she's relearned how to cry slowly. Even that awful Easter afternoon with Nicky didn't trigger sobs like this.

Booker's rubbing her back and murmuring into her ear and she knows her losing her shit like this, crying like this after saying all those impossible things, has to have him in his feelings too.

He's so warm and so solid and she can accept this comfort he's offering her. Later, after she's caught her breath and gotten a handle on her panic, she will hold space for him too. They have time.

She releases her hands where they'd been clutching at the fabric of his shirt across his back, and they take a few steps back from each other, connected only with her hand he takes in his own.

"You weren't kidding about a wall of talking," he says, and it's not sarcastic, no edge to it. It's like a fluffy blanket fresh out of the dryer. "Here, will you lay on the floor with me?" Nile raises an eyebrow, and pink rises in his cheeks. "Not like that. Try one of my somatic exercises with me."

"Ok," she says, small.

He leads her to the spot of rug between the couch and the window and asks her to get into child's pose next to him. She holds her forehead in her palms, and as she sinks deeper into the pose, she shifts to press her palms gently over her closed eyes.

He talks her through imagining her whole body is a single cell. "Let yourself breathe in from all directions, from the floor through your shins and knees, through the back of your spine, through the tips of your braids all the way up to your scalp, right through your skin."

Another time she might make a mitochondria joke, but not today. She's not sure when it happens, just that something releases somewhere and she's crying softly. She's crying with _ease_.

When they're both done, they both stand up slowly, and Booker takes her hand and guides her to sit next to him on the couch.

"I've had a lot of the same thoughts," he says once he's gotten them situated with his arms around her. "I'm a mess and I don't want to drag you down with me."

She gulps in a breath to respond to that, and he holds up a hand. "My turn for a wall of talking, sil te plait.

"Andy found you, what, a day after your first death? They found me trudging my way back home from Russia a few months into immortality, and they insisted on traveling with me for a while but then I told them to fuck off and didn't see any of them again for a quarter-century. Joe and Nicky outlived a few generations at least before Andy and Quỳnh found them, probably a century at least. We all learned about this in drips and drabs. We dumped on you in the span of a few days the very worst realities of this life, things the rest of us had years to get used to.

"The world always feels a little like it's spinning out of control, but this child of the Industrial Revolution whose first immortal century was the most violent in all of human history is well aware that your entry into this nightmare is objectively the worst of any of ours. None of them knew how to help me cope with any of it, but I already felt like a worthless rat bastard who didn't deserve what help they did manage, and here you are, this goddess who deserves the entire universe and the best of everything and it doesn't change that none of us have any idea how to help you through this.

"That night a few weeks ago when I canceled on dinner at Fatou's was because I needed to sit on my floor and cry because I'm so jealous that Nicky and Joe found each other right away and I had to wait two centuries for you and I have no right to be that jealous or that possessive and I put everything I have into sitting here making my body work through the shame of it.

"Chris likes to say, 'don't borrow trouble,' and honestly it's the best advice I've come across. That and breathing exercises and trying to stay in the moment is pretty much all I've got."

He's quiet for a moment, and then he _smirks_ , and it's as comforting as it is sexy. "I want to apologize that I can't give you more, but I'm working on that possessiveness thing."

"Can I say something really weird, before I tell you how much I appreciate all the beautiful things you just said to me?"

"You don't ever need permission to speak freely to me, mon étoile, you know that." Nile makes a face, and he says, "I feel appropriately warned that you're going to say something _really weird_."

"All of a sudden I'm really looking forward to meeting the next immortal. We could get a mathematician on the case, it's probably going to be before I turn 200 if the pattern holds. The way you neatly summarize for my benefit lessons that I know cost you centuries of misery is just, like, really reassuring."

He smiles like lightning. "You are such a top," he says.

"Don't tempt me," she says. There are big things they still need to discuss. There are hurts that will never go away. But the most important thing in the universe Nile can possibly do at this particular moment is just sit here in his arms and hold his gaze.

"Ok," Nile says, because after all, she is the boss. "This may never get easier, or if it does get easier it's never gonna be easy, and because of who I am as a person I don't think I'm gonna be able to take our relationship one day at a time. But maybe we could do, like, one decade at a time? Which is ridiculous — I mean, it's only been six months!"

She covers her face with her hand, and Booker gently takes her hand and draws it to his mouth for a soft kiss across her knuckles.

"One decade at a time sounds wonderful," he says.

"Before I leave London I want dates to put in my phone for the next time I'm going to see you. Save the date for my next ten birthdays. And I think I'm done with planning for the future for tonight."

He kisses her hand again, holding her gaze all the while.

"You keep saying one of these days you're gonna tie me up, Sébastien. It means a lot to me that you worry about getting too possessive, but I'm not worried. I trust you." He breathes in sharply, so she twists her hand in his to slot their fingers together. "You're trustworthy, mon nounours. How about this. For the next 12 hours this is the last decision I'm making, you're in charge, possess me as much as you want."

"I know you well enough by now not to ask if you're sure," he says, soft and like a growl at the same time. And then he's picking her up and rolling them both over and pinning her into the couch.

They do very little talking for the rest of the night.

* * *

It's too much of a security risk to take Fatou up on her offer of a going-away party. If all her tutors met each other and Chris and Mina and Booker's school friends and everyone, and in fifty years Nile and Booker show up in photos of some international incident—

It would be _so nice_ , but they can't risk it.

Instead, Nile spends all of December on a farewell tour of London.

Wendy and her wife are going to be out of the country for a long Christmas holiday, so they're first up on the tour. Nile and Booker show up on their doorstep for Nile's final tutoring session with three days' worth of takeout and lots of stories that even Booker's rusty Mandarin can keep up with.

They go over to Yasha's one of the nights of Chanukah, which Nile learns [she's started pronouncing with an Arabic accent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heth). Yasha's taught her a smattering of Yiddish and Hebrew words alongside what's becoming her near-fluency in Russian, and she's mastered a lot of the finer points of pronunciation this year, including Mandarin tones, thank you very fucking much, but that Hebrew ch mystifies her. It's all she can do not to pronounce it like it's Spanish.

Nile's had plenty of latkes in her time, but she never knew what happened in the kitchens of the old-school delis still peppering Chicago to bring them into existence. It's an absolute mess and she _loves_ it. Talya makes endless fun of her for staring at Booker while he squeezes the liquid out of the potato shreds through cheesecloth, and the teasing is so worth it for a visual of his strong hands that's going to live in her brain rent-free for a good long while.

Yasha gives her a tight hug at the end of the night and whispers in her ear, "I'm going to miss you, sheyne. I'll keep an eye on your bashert for you."

Nile knows Booker plans to keep coming back for Shabbat dinners with Yasha and Talya next year. She doesn't know what bashert means, but she can guess from his tone that Yasha has an inkling of how much this man means to her.

Booker sees Chris, Mina, and Laura almost every week thanks to therapy, but Nile hasn't seen them since they had the two of them over for a little Diwali party last month. She's going to miss Chris a lot. They haven't spent much time together, not really, but their quiet presence makes Nile feel _understood_.

Maybe it's time to admit to herself that she's got feelings about being the only Black immortal alive.

In two weeks she'll be in Santiago with Andy, Quỳnh, Joe, and Nicky. She's never been to South America before. It'll be an adventure, but she's nervous too, and if she's honest with herself that she's nervous — if she's honest with herself about _why_ she's nervous — she can do something about it. Like asking Joe and Quỳnh for a POC-only shopping trip.

She and Quỳnh had talked about it some while they were in New York, the way antiblackness weasels its way into everything in the United States and spreads like garbage juice across the entire world, the ways racism had _diversified_ , so to speak, in the 500 years Quỳnh spent on the ocean floor. Nile still can't quite believe that Quỳnh is, depending on how you define it, _older than racism_.

Sometimes it weirds her out a little, how woke Booker is, with his bell hooks collection and his stories about the Harlem Renaissance and the very deliberate way he holds her hand in public. But sometimes she gets the sense that Andy thinks of racism like it's a fad, the way Nile's mom thought of the more cringe-worthy fashion trends of Nile's high school years — an unfortunate thing that will fade with time, that we'll look back on with a grimace and a laugh. Joe and Nicky have been dealing with the racism that caused their first meeting for their entire lives, and Booker works really hard to understand what being born into the era of modern chattel slavery didn't already teach him. In some ways Quỳnh escaped one hell for another. But Lykon is long dead and she might be alone in this particular experience for a very, very long time, surrounded by people who don't really get that it affects _everything_ in her life and very possibly always will.

Anyway, she has another two weeks left of having Black friends she can spend time with in person.

Booker's got Laura perched on his shoulders so she has the best possible view from which to point and shout about the Christmas lights display all around them. Nile can't hold his hand because Laura has no sense of self-preservation and she _will_ tumble to the ground if he doesn't keep a hold on both of her legs. He could probably catch her, but she'd probably love that and ask to go again like a carnival ride.

Nile never had to explain to Chris and Mina why it's important not to tease Booker about when he's going to get her pregnant. They've seen him cry over Jean-Pierre more than she has. She's so glad he has them.

They've all been watching transfixed as lights blink on and off on a timer to show elves tossing a snowball back and forth when Chris bumps their shoulder into hers. "From what I hear, Boston is the most racist city on the planet — you're sure you have to go back?" Their smile is comforting in its wryness, and Nile snorts at just how right on the money they are, minus the cover-story lie.

"Part of me wants to stay," she admits. "But he likes that I'm ambitious," and she nods to her sparkling dumbass, who is currently spinning around in circles to Laura's delight, "and more importantly, I like that I'm ambitious. I've got shit to do over there. People I'm excited to see." Chris nods, and they both fall quiet. "I'm gonna miss you though," she says eventually.

"I'll miss you too, Lena," they say. "I'm so glad Sébastien found you."

"Funny," she says, smiling warm and wide, "I was just thinking the same thing about the three of y'all."

Laura starts clamoring for hot cocoa and Nile doubts she'll get another quiet moment with either of the sweet little tornado's parents for the rest of the night.

The point of this whole year was to savor moments of connection with mortals while they last. The sweetness balances out the bitter of such a long life, like coffee with the right amount of milk. Nile makes a mental note to bring it up in her next meeting with Jim, some way to protect her team's secret while also maintaining longer-term connections with mortals, individuals whose friendship she knows will stay with her much longer than their too-short lives.

* * *

Nile's church friend Bridget has her over for "a proper London Christmas" complete with crackers and hats and semi-lovingly making fun of the Queen's speech. It's so much easier to poke holes in somebody else's imperialism, plus Meghan Markle is an immaculate queen and also _she can get it_.

Nile goes over to Booker's place late on Christmas night in a very good mood at least partially influenced by the fact that she is very drunk.

"The lights are so pretty, babe!" she keeps saying as she begs him to fuck her under the Christmas tree.

She settles for cuddling after many rounds of him saying increasingly graphic things to the effect of, "I can smell consent issues on your breath and I'd rather not roll around naked in a bed of pine needles."

Booker sort of celebrates Christmas this year — he did raise his children Catholic, and he loves modern Christmas music — but he declined Bridget's invite, which came via Nile because the two of them have never met. Probably best not to leave too many people who will remember both of them, just in case.

They've probably been too permissive this year with how many mortals they let get to know them.

Booker has been avidly following [Elizabeth Warren's](https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c) and [other American Democrats'](https://apnews.com/article/technology-50e69e921c6699a3edbd730c12292436) attempts to break up the big tech companies — which are all American companies, of fucking course — as well as [GDPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation) implementation and other countries' attempts at privacy protections. Mortals aren't going to be able to function much longer without figuring this shit out, and worrying whether he's going to make a friend at a yoga studio who then writes something about him on a blog that a historian will find in 200 years that will then facilitate his family getting captured again—

He's been fucked up emotionally for a very long time for reasons well beyond [the advent of the snapshot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera#Kodak_and_the_birth_of_film), but Andy's increasing paranoia that they can't have connections with human beings outside of their little family is just as valid as it is an unsustainable way to live.

Andy's taught Booker more things than he can remember in the relative blip of his lifetime compared to hers, and one of them is that no matter how serious the crisis feels right now, the world _always_ feels like it's spinning out of control. The way she tells it, the world felt that way before people even knew it was spinning beneath their feet.

It doesn't make the crises of this age any less terrifying, but it does help him breathe just a little bit easier.

He and Nile have both been getting even more philosophical than usual lately. He wonders vaguely how much of that is because it's December, because Nile's about to move away, because this year has been about such intense personal growth for both of them, or if this is something that will always be a part of their relationship.

And then he thinks back to dozens of times he and Joe and Nicky and Andy had drunkenly debated-slash-ranted about whatever issue of the day, and for once, thinking about his estranged family makes him smile.

* * *

The main event of Nile's farewell tour is New Year's Eve Eve dinner with Fatou and what feels like every member of her extended family. 

Malik is there, of course, with Adedayo and a stack of flyers that everyone in the family is expected to spread around town to promote their upcoming show. Gwen is there too. They finally started dating in November, and to Nile's relieved delight, they receive one hundred percent of the "so when are you two going to get married" fuss.

Fatou's younger daughter Kadija is visiting for winter holiday from grad school, and she and Booker spend a good long while comparing grant administration nightmares. Kadija is studying geology, which is a hell of a lot better funded than Booker's area of study because it's ultimately where the little magic bits in smartphones comes from, but the academia drama remains.

For the entirety of that conversation, and for most of the night, Booker is doubling as a jungle gym for Jama's two little daughters, four-year-old Meghan and six-year-old Diana. Nile is fine, in case you were wondering.

Nile knew going in that she can't take pictures of herself and Booker with these people who've come to mean so much to her, and she thinks she's made peace with it, but this one moment makes her heart sore. Meghan is picking her nose at the dinner table and her mother scolds her to stop that and go wash her hands. Meghan won the most recent fight with her sister over who gets to sit with Sébastien, and the very large very soft man holding her gently in his lap grins at this little girl and picks his nose too before scooping her up because now they both have to wash their hands.

Moustapha and Jama both ask Nile lots of questions about her Fashion Week trip and the BP gala and what she's most excited about in the next stage of her career. It's a fun puzzle, giving honest answers reflecting on what she's been through this year and what she's hoping to accomplish next, just shifting key details to maintain her cover. Every so often Nile catches Booker's eye across the table and she has the ridiculous idea that if he didn't have his hands full with sugar-addled babies he'd be holding up a big placard with a 10 scrawled across it in sharpie. At one point she winks at him and his blush is the cutest damn thing.

Hugging Fatou goodbye hurts like hell. She's planning to visit Booker in London periodically over the rest of his PhD program, but her and Jim's initial conversation about it revealed the mind-numbing complexity of maintaining long-term friendships that she and the others make with mortals. She won't risk her family's safety, but emotional safety is part of that, and it's so complicated but right now all Nile can think is that she's just going to miss Fatou so much.

* * *

The new year dawns and it's time for Nile and Booker to kiss goodbye. They've talked about it several times since the not-Thanksgiving crying fest, and they're both feeling good about giving each other some space in this next stage of their relationship. The plan is to text more days than not for the remaining 98 years of Booker's sentence and see each other in person at least once a year and figure it out as it comes.

Booker spent two centuries simultaneously wallowing in his pain and pretending it didn't exist. He's come a long way in just over a year, but he just bought the books for his new semester and they're all yet more evidence: his brain needs a metric fuckton of rewiring. Whatever makes them immortal seems uninterested in healing his fucked-up brain, but he doesn't want to want to die anymore, so he's got his work cut out for him.

Nile _loves him_. And somehow, by some miracle, he's _good for her_. Their relationship has been a revelation, a beam of sunshine from the heavens in one of those chiaroscuro paintings she loves so much. But he's grateful that her time in London always had an expiration date, because he knows he needs space to do the next stage of un-integrating and healing from his shitty coping mechanisms, and it would be hell to have to ask her for as much space as he's going to need.

He knows what codependency is and he doesn't want that for Nile. Thank God or Andy or whoever arranges these things that it just so happens he and Nile got this whirlwind year together and now he gets to be someone she texts sometimes while she goes off on a new stage of personal growth of her own.

Jesus, he's going to be a certified therapist by the time Joe and Nicky talk to him again, isn't he? Maybe by then the team will no longer have need for fake IDs.

Two days after Nile leaves for Santiago is his first session with a support group for parents who've lost children to cancer. And he promised Malik not only that he'll be at his show but he'll distribute this massive stack of flyers.

* * *

Nile decides, after a few years of deliberation, to celebrate Easter as her death-anniversary-slash-immortal-birthday. She doesn't want to memorialize every year for eternity the day Dizzy looked at her like a medical experiment gone wrong. She doesn't want to ask Joe and Nicky to celebrate what is also the anniversary of their own medical trauma, but when Nile's third immortal birthday passes and Andy reassures her that she can mark the day with them if she wants, Nile realizes it really is that awful memory of Dizzy and Jay and her damn packed bags.

Booker's doing more and more exploration of his Jewish ancestry as the years pass, and he says the rhythms of Jewish life are his favorite part. Shabbat to Shabbat, season to season, birth to death, one Rosh Hashanah to the next. Nile's always loved Easter, the music and the floral dresses and that feeling of _clean_ that she's delighted to learn Nicky understands completely because sometimes he feels it too.

As awful as it felt at the time, that Easter in London with Nicky was a turning point she's come to cherish. Plus, the world will still be celebrating Easter long after everyone from her mortal life is dust. Maybe she'll live long enough to be there for the Second Coming, or maybe she'll live long enough that Christ no longer holds that meaning for her — or even for the world — but If Joe and Nicky's lives are any indication, this is something she'll be able to rely on to mark the seasons of her life for a very long time to come.

Her least-favorite of her mother's friends growing up was very strict about the idea that birthdays are for children. (She was also a big 'phobe, and those cookies are _not_ that good, Sheryl, please skip our house with the Christmas tupperware this year, ugh.) One of the things Nile likes about getting old (ha, she's _thirty_ now) is squeezing wisdom even out of obnoxious people and their shitty opinions.

Nile's birthday, her mortal birthday, is just for the kids, so to speak, in her new family: her and Booker.

Every July he takes her somewhere on the planet with a piece of art she hasn't seen before. Sometimes it's a place Nile's been wanting to visit for years, like the National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC or the Museo del Greco in Toledo, Spain. Sometimes it's a complete surprise, like the Wadi Finan Art Gallery in Amman, Jordan with its refugee art therapy programs or the Detroit Institute of Arts with its gorgeous Diego Rivera murals that _Booker did not mention to her until they entered the building, wtf you ridiculous man, why didn't you tell me we were gonna sort-of visit your sort-of ex_.

Sometimes it's something simple, relatively speaking, like buying her a wall and helping her bring her own mural to life. If a mission or something is keeping them from traveling, he gets creative — like the time their trip to northern India is disrupted by extreme weather so he arranges for them to build the Taj Mahal out of Legos. 

When she turns 37 he takes her to Barcelona for its sea air and dozens of museums. One morning he's out on the balcony taking in the view and a cup of coffee when she sneaks up behind him and alerts him to her presence with a trail of kisses across his shoulders.

Marseille is only about 300 km away from where they're standing, and he's happy like he never imagined he could be again. Looking out on the sea that morning, he starts thinking that maybe someday soon he'll be ready to go back to Marseille for the first time since Jean-Pierre died, and he'd like to take Nile with him.

It's around the same time that Nile starts thinking about asking Booker to marry her. The thoughts of her mother shouting "living in sin!" have started to turn from grief-stricken to fond, and it's not like they'll even have a chance to live together for several more decades. Marriage was important to her first family, and even though it's not important to most of her new family, it's important to her. She goes back and forth on the question of when. Why rush if you don't have to, but then again, why wait if you don't have to?

When her 46th birthday is coming up, and he says that this year he's ready to take her to Marseille — _oh_. That's it.

That's the first time she _almost_ asks him to marry her.

It becomes a tradition within a tradition: every 20 years they go to Provence for her birthday. Every time she almost proposes to him, but something holds her back. In 2040 her mom has just turned 70 and it turns out she has too many feelings about it to focus on making a thousand-year commitment, and in 2060 her brother is still recovering from cancer, and in 2080 Andy— Andy—

Anyway, she doesn't want to propose to him out of fear that he's her only option to make it official that she still has a family. Marriage is only a symbol, but it's a big one. It matters to her. She wants to marry him because of _him_ and everything the two of them are to each other, not even the littlest bit because she's afraid of waking up in a thousand years all alone. (And a little bit she wants to marry him for the excuse to wear a just absurdly over the top couture princess wedding dress.)

In 2110 they add a new layer to the tradition: Chicago. The Council of the Three Fires takes much better care of the city than the State of Illinois ever did. They're really starting to beat back the heat island effect — it's way less muggy now than it was in the summers when she was a kid. So much is different, but it's _home_ , and she's even more delighted to be here than she thought she'd be.

Nile proposes to Sébastien on the plaza outside the Art Institute of Chicago.

They get married ten years later in Marseille, under a chuppah embroidered with the names of every ancestor they could each track down even a wisp of a record of, with special care given to those who'd been enslaved, expelled, forcibly converted. Quỳnh and Joe make Nile's dress by hand. The exile had finally ended the previous year, and one of the first things Nicky said to Booker after a century of silence was that he would be honored to officiate.

Andy had given her blessing more than 80 years previously. On their wedding day Quỳnh gets to surprise the happy couple with a letter Andy had written for when this day eventually came. It includes the line, "Don't fuck it up. But I know you won't, because you bring out the best in each other."

* * *

## Epilogue: 2219

Humanity only uses air travel for medical emergencies these days, the same way they only use automobiles in rural areas or for last-kilometer deliveries. Public railways connect neighborhoods, cities, and now even continents. The Transatlantic South and North Railways can be glamorous, restful, or educational, depending on your preference and whether you have kids in tow. 

(For the adrenaline junkies, there's a special train that runs a few times a year where you can watch the classic Bong Joon Ho film Snowpiercer on your journey.)

Identity documents work the same way as public transit, a globally interconnected, democratically controlled resource designed to meet human needs and limit potential abuses. Neuroscience of consent made it possible. Do you want the person pulling up your ID, your current location, your social media profile to be able to read it? No matter where you or they are in the world, the chip will only grant them access with your consent.

If your kid gets lost and wants you to be able to find them? Here are their coordinates! If your kid runs away from you and doesn't want you to be able to find them? Nah, but friendly reminder about your neighborhood wellness center in case you're ready to become someone your kid doesn't want to run away from.

And visas and citizenships are still a thing, but the reasoning is the opposite of what it had been. Migration is beautiful. People coming into someone else's home and announcing they own the place is not, so there are rules on how long you can stay in a place if you try to do anything extractive or erase the existing culture and replace it with your own.

The UN keeps changing the rules on how exactly this works, because billions of people sometimes have diametrically opposed needs and priorities, and an idea that on its face seems simple and driven by only the best of intentions gets infinitely more complicated the more people you try to apply it to. The UN keeps changing the rules on how exactly international governance works, too. Maybe someone, someday will come up with a form of government that doesn't leave some people unheard.

Paper is still a thing, but it's less ubiquitous and far less wasted than it was at the height of the Disposables Era. Mostly paper gets used now to make art, and people only print things like tickets on special occasions.

Pedro is nearing the end of his shift at one of the biggest train stations in the world. Four-hour shifts, five times a week, full-time salary — it's all he's ever known, but his grandmother tells him stories sometimes about the blood she saw her parents shed fighting for a hard reset on what counts as work and how it's valued.

He's on boarding duty this afternoon at the intercontinental terminal. He just checked in a group of teenagers chattering away excitedly in Lokono as they embark on the next leg of their gap year program.

The most glamorous couple he's seen in a long time is next up to board the train to Senegal. Their paper tickets read Loire & Sébastien Freeman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I poured a piece of my soul into this fic and I'm so grateful to y'all for coming on this journey with me.
> 
> The Chicago hockey team shares an extreme yikes with my city's football team and several other professional and school sports teams all over the US: racist caricatures of Native Americans in names and logos. [The Chicago team claims their name honors a specific person](https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/us/chicago-blackhawks-name-spt-trnd/index.html) whereas my city's football team is literally just a racial slur. DC was a majority-Black city for about 50 years, until too many people like me started moving here (ironically, many to work for or lobby the Obama administration), and it's a messy thing that this literal racial slur of a team name and its extremely racist logo are symbols of Chocolate City pride for a lot of Black people born and raised in DC. I'm making a guess about a similar dynamic in Chicago, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> The breathing exercise Booker talks Nile through is Tool 92: Cellular Breathing from Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox by Manuela Mischke-Reeds, MA, LMFT. 
> 
> French (thank you again [highlightcity_159](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlightcity_159) for endearment school!!)  
> ça va aller = you're ok  
> sil te plait = please  
> mon étoile = my star, a romantic endearment  
> mon nounours = my teddy bear, a romantic endearment
> 
> Yiddish  
> sheyne = beautiful  
> bashert = intended, beloved, soulmate — it sometimes has religious connotations, it's a big thing, not something you throw around casually, at least not in my experience  
> zaide = grandfather
> 
> From the very first outline of this fic I knew one of Nile's tutor aunties was going to be a grandmother because of [THIS PICTURE from Matthias Schoenaerts's insta of him and a little girl who could be Booker and Nile's baby both picking their noses](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/628393270985326592/h-yb-fuck-it-booker-will-always-hold-a-baby)
> 
> I have been to the [Detroit Institute of Arts](https://www.dia.org/riveracourt) and the Diego Rivera murals are STUNNING and you can get so close you can all but press your nose to them and they're so detailed it's so cool, get your ass to Detroit when you can, 12/10
> 
> One of many things that scared the shit out of me about writing this fic is imagining a future where Nile, and most everybody else on the planet, could be safe and happy. I thought a lot about how much the world has changed in the past 200 years to imagine what might be possible in the next 200. One thing I've always been confident about is the switch from air travel and automobiles to trains, and if we can figure out how to make train tracks float on top of oceans, [an intercontinental railway between Brazil and Senegal would be only about a third as long as the Trans-Siberian Railway](https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-closest-points-between-all-the-continents).
> 
> It was important to me to touch on something I, a white American, very much am not qualified to make real-world decisions about: imagining details of a decolonized future. Please join me in reading the Art Institute of Chicago land acknowledgement and thinking about what those of us who live on stolen land can do to give the [land back](https://landback.org/).
> 
> [The Art Institute of Chicago is located on the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. The region has long been a center for Indigenous people to gather, trade, and maintain kinship ties. Today, one of the largest urban American Indian communities in the United States resides in Chicago. Members of this community continue to contribute to the life of this city and to celebrate their heritage, practice traditions, and care for the land and waterways.](https://www.artic.edu/about-us/land-acknowledgment)
> 
> [Lokono](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arawak_language) is one of many, many indigenous languages of the Western Hemisphere that are critically endangered and that people whose heritage includes those languages could revive if they so chose, if enough of humanity pushes for redistribution of power and resources.


End file.
